In making a series of meteorological experiments which he conducted at the Blue Hills Observatory, Mr. Eddy often employed as many as eight or ten kites; and in August, 1895, he sent up twelve kites on one line, three of them being nine-footers. This is probably the largest number of kites ever sent up in tandem; and although on this occasion the line carried only the thermographs suspended in a basket, the whole weighing not more than two pounds, a very much larger load might have been carried, had it been desired.
MURRAY AND WARREN STREETS, NEW YORK CITY, FROM A KITE.
From a photograph taken from a kite by Mr. W.A. Eddy, showing Murray and Warren Streets, New York City, as they run west from Broadway.
Among many other curious things about the wind observed by Mr. Eddy, is the fact that the night winds are by far the steadiest and most satisfactory for kite-flying. On this account much of his work with kites has been done in the darkness, although he uses lanterns on the lines to assist him in locating the kites. It has also been demonstrated that the force of the wind increases steadily as the distance from the earth increases. Archibald proved this conclusively, by suspending a series of wind-measuring instruments at intervals along the main line, their registration showing almost invariably greater wind pressure at the higher altitude. Mr. Eddy has furthermore noted that, while the early morning wind is usually very light at the earth's surface, it is almost invariably good aloft; and he has again and again verified the well-established fact that all clouds herald their approach and are accompanied by increased wind velocity.
THE HIGHEST FLIGHT EVER MADE BY A KITE.
The modern system of flying kites tandem was devised by Mr. Eddy in 1890, although it was hit upon two years later independently by Dr. Alexander B. Johnson, the distinguished surgeon of the Roosevelt Hospital in New York. The tandem system makes it possible to send kites to far greater altitudes than had ever been previously attained. And here the best record is undoubtedly held by one of Mr. Eddy's tandems, sent aloft at Bayonne, on November 7, 1893. Mr. Eddy began to send up the kites at 7:30 A.M.; but, being hampered by light breezes from the east, found he was kept busy until half-past three in the afternoon in getting nine kites aloft. He had paid out nearly two miles of cord, when the top kite, a little two-footer, stood straight over the spar buoy in Newark Bay. The lowest kite, a six-footer, was hovering some distance inland from the shore, on a line from the shore to Mr. Eddy's house (where the end of the line was anchored) measuring fifty-five hundred feet by the surveyor's map. Taking two observations from the two ends of this base line, Mr. Eddy's kite-quadrant showed angles of thirty-five and sixty-six degrees; and these data, by simple methods of triangulation, were sufficient to determine the altitude of the kite, which was found to be five thousand five hundred and ninety-five feet—or something over one mile. The kites were seen by hundreds of persons during the fifteen hours that they remained up, the experiment coming to an abrupt end at ten o'clock that night by the blowing away of the two upper kites in the increasing wind. The escaped kites disappeared in Newark Bay, along with three thousand feet of the line.
