"Be particularly careful," was Hall's injunction, "and if anything happens to the kite by all means note the angles at that instant." As soon as we had fixed our stations Hall began to pay out the string, and the kite rose very swiftly. As it sped away into the blue it was soon practically invisible to the naked eye, although the telescope of the transit enabled me to follow it with ease. Glancing across now and then at my companion, I noticed that he was having considerable difficulty in, at the same time, managing the kite and manipulating his transit. But as the kite continued to rise and steadied in position his task became easier, until at length he ceased to remove his eye from the telescope while holding the string with outstretched hand. "Don't lose sight of it now for an instant!" he shouted. For at least half an hour he continued to manipulate the string, sending the kite now high towards the zenith with a sudden pull, and then letting it drift off. It seemed at last to become almost a fixed point. Very slowly the angles changed, when, suddenly, there was a flash, and to my amazement I saw the paper of the kite shrivel and disappear in a momentary flame, and then the bare sticks came tumbling out of the sky. "Did you get the angles?" yelled Hall, excitedly. "Yes; the telescope is yet pointed on the spot where the kite disappeared." "Read them off," he called, "and then get your angle with the Syx works." "All right," I replied, doing as he had requested, and noticing at the same time that he was in the act of putting his watch in his pocket. "Is there anything else?" I asked. "No, that will do, thank you." Hall came running over, his face beaming, and with the air of a man who has just hooked a particularly cunning old trout. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "this has been a great success! I could almost dispense with the calculation, but it is best to be sure." "What are you about, anyhow?" I asked, "and what was it that happened to the kite?" "Don't interrupt me just now, please," was the only reply I received. Thereupon my friend sat down on a rock, pulled out a pad of paper, noted the angles which I had read on the transit, and fell to figuring with feverish haste. In the course of his work he consulted a pocket almanac, then glanced up at the sky, muttered approvingly, and finally leaped to his feet with a half-suppressed "Hurrah!" If I had not known him so well I should have thought that he had gone daft. "Will you kindly tell me," I asked, "how you managed to set the kite afire?" Hall laughed heartily. "You though it was a trick, did you?" said he. "Well, it was no trick, but a very beautiful demonstration. You surely haven't forgotten the scarlet tanager that gave you such a surprise the day before yesterday." "Do you mean," I exclaimed, startled at the suggestion, "that the fate of the bird had any connection with the accident to your kite?"