Records Aid Army

WEATHER RECORDS made and preserved with scholarly care by the Shattuck Observatory at Dartmouth College have taken on great practical value for U. S. Army engineers making plans for a proposed $500,000 airport in West Lebanon, N. H. Hour by hour for more than five continuous years the Dartmouth observatory, directed by Prof. Richard H. Goddard '20, has recorded the direction of the wind and its velocity. These facts have been carefully analyzed by months and years and just as carefully stored awayfor all of which the Army is now thankful as it prepares to strengthen its air defenses in northern New England.

When Professor Goddard sold the College on the idea of modernizing its observatory equipment six years ago, he foretold that the wind measurements possible with automatic recorders would be invaluable if anyone undertook to build an airport in the Dartmouth region. He insists now that that was only a theoretical selling point and that, far from having any prophetic gifts, he is as surprised as anyone that events have borne out his contention.

The Shattuck Observatory's wind measurements are made by means of an anemometer, which automatically records velocity, and a vane for recording direction. Its result sheets, requiring many hours of additional calculation, have been compiled by Professor Goddard "while resting himself." The data accumulated at Dartmouth, along with those of the United States Weather Bureau at Concord, comprise the only systematic recording of wind velocity, direction and duration in New Hampshire. Wind observations at the top of Mt. Washington are made only periodically.

Although the records in which the U. S. Army is interested for its air base cover only the last five years, Shattuck Observatory has been keeping other meteorological records ever since it moved into its present quarters on Observatory Hill 87 years ago. Dartmouth's first records go back to 1827 when Professor Ebenezer Adams started recording the temperatures and types of days in Hanover. His work was incomplete, however, and it was not until 1841 that Professor Ira Young started the recording of not only temperature and type of day but also cloud formations, wind direction, and precipitation.

The records of rain precipitation being kept by Shattuck Observatory are also proving valuable to the government at the present time and are being sent each month to the U. S. Weather Bureau's office in Albany, N. Y., part of the hydrologic network studying run-off conditions and flood control in New England and New York. Professor Goddard takes some pride in the precipitation gage which he and his assistant, Harold H. Lane '3l of the astronomy staff, have rigged up. The gage is thermostatically controlled so that heat will be provided to melt the snow during the winter.