AVIATION DEPENDENT ON SCIENTISTS WORK

"Although unnoticed in the press, and not altogether desiring such publicity, this Observatory played no mean part in obtaining information for Trans-Atlantic flights subsequent to the first" . . . is a statement contained in the annual, report for 1926-27 to President Lowell by A. G. McAdie '84, director of the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory.

"There is now no question about man's use of the air as a medium of transportation and communication. The events of the year have awakened public interest to the convenience, safety and advantage of travel through the air. For years the best engineering brains of all countries have been directed to improving the machine, in designs of plane and efficiency of engines. Would that a small portion of the time and money thus spent in developing the machine had been spent in improving our knowledge of the medium in which the machine, like man, must function. The importance of a knowledge of the structure of the air is becoming more evident as long distance flights increase in number."

The Blue Hill Observatory, located on the summit of Great Blue Hill in the Metropolitan Park Reservation, was founded by the late Professor A. Lawrence Rotch in 1884. Regular observations, begun on February 1, 1885, have been continued without interruption for over 40 years and constitute a unique series in the history of American climatology. The equipment consists of standard European and American makes of barometers, thermometers, hygrometers, and wind instruments, to which are added sunshine recorders, instruments for recording night cloudiness, and improved types of nephoscopes for day observations. The results of the observations made with these instruments, together with the more important researches made in exploring the upper air, have been published in various volumes of the Harvard Observatory Annals.

The library of the station contains 8,298 bound volumes and 16,445 pamphlets dealing chiefly with aerography, and some rare copies of early publications in meteorology. A secondary station, at the base of the hill, is supplied, with self-registering instruments, the records of which are used to advantage in studies of the circulation of the lower air.

"The purpose of the Observatory," in the words of its founder, "is mainly research, free from prescribed duties and independent of outside control."

In the report to the President this year, Director McAdie advocated that it would be beneficial to Harvard and to science, for the University authorities to consider the establishment of a Division of Aerography, "separate and distinct from Geography, Geology or Physics. This would place Harvard in a commanding position in a new field of applied science. While we cannot hope to produce aeronautical engineers or even pilots, undergraduates as well as graduates would receive knowledge of the fundamental operations of that most important operative factor in man's environment, the weather. We walk on the earth, and have done so in all past ages; but we also walk and live in the air, and are now beginning to utilize our power to spring from earth and traverse the air. The importance of knowing more about that medium is apparent. "The air's the thing and before long men who have not had instruction in aerography, will feel that their college training was deficient; and such limitation of their knowledge will prove a handicap. There is rare opportunity for some friend of Harvard to found a Chair of Aerography.