American literature -- Periodicals; Literature -- Periodicals
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.
[Illustration: KITE-DRAWN BUOY.
Invented by Prof. J. Woodbridge Davis. This buoy lacks the steering
appliances of the one shown below, and travels simply in a line with
the kite that draws it.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account