Not content with obtaining records from the air near the earth’s surface, meteorologists have sent up their instruments by means of small, un-manned balloons to heights of 10 miles; and the use of kites for carrying up such instruments
has been so successful that, at Blue Hill Observatory, near Boston, Mass., records have been obtained from a height of over 2 miles. Observatories have also been established on mountain summits, where meteorological observations have been made with more or less regularity. Such observatories are those on Pike’s Peak, Colorado (14,134 feet), Mont Blanc, Switzerland (15,780 feet), and on El Misti, in southern Peru. The latter, 19,200 feet above sea level, is the highest meteorological station in the world.
The study of the meteorological conditions prevailing over the earth has thus become of world-wide importance. In the following exercises we shall carry out, in a small way, investigations similar to those which have occupied and are now occupying the attention of meteorologists all over the world.
PRACTICAL EXERCISES IN ELEMENTARY
METEOROLOGY.
Part I.—Non-Instrumental Observations.