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have been erected. which include an exchange building. administration building, guardhouse, officers' quarters. barracks, stables and storehouses.
An appropriation of $150,000 was made by the Congress which just adjourned. and a good share of this will be spent for new equipment. which. to the officers, appears the most important at this time. The first new structure will be a balloon house, which is considered a most important adjunct.
Experiments in Balloons.
The principal work of the officers at Fort Omaha at this time is the preparation for the supplying of the seven or eight maneuvre camps for next August, with details of men and equipment. in order that a great test of ability along the general lines of communication during active operations may be made. Nearly every sort of small apparatus known in modern times will be tried out and tests made of their practicability.
While the field telegraph and field telephone will be given great attention. perhaps the most interesting experiments will be with the captive balloons. One of these balloons is now at Fort Omaha. and three others are being built and will be ready for service when the maneuvres begin.
The signal work will prove an education to many young men and will result in qualifying them for civil pursuits after their enlistments expire. The Government will school these young men in telegraphy, telephony, fire control, ballooning, chemistry and other lines. Attention will be given to the flag and lamp signalling, heliograph. rocket and semaphore systems and the arrangement of field construction and communications trains
The Government has enlarged the parade ground, and part of it will be given up to the balloon division, which will have an aerostatic park, in the center of which will be constructed a balloon house, to be used for the inflation of the large captive balloons, and from which the ascensions will be made.
Telegraph Wire in Rope.
All balloons used in the Signal Service are of the captive style, that is, they are provided with a rope and windlass with which they may be pulled down at the pleasure of the operator. Wound on the windless with the rope is also a small, pliable wire of good conductivity, over which those in the balloon may telegraph to earth. 
The first balloon station of the signal corps was established by Col. W. A. Grassford at Fort Logan, Col. , in 1884, but the development work was never carried out to any great extent because of the obstacles  He secured leave of absence and went to France and Germany, where he made a study of aerial navigation, but the Government did not avail itself of his information to any extent and decided to secure through private individuals the development of ballooning.
This work has begun by Major Samuel Reber, now a member of the General Staff, who had shown great aptitude for aeronautical experiments. He was assisted by Capt. Charles F. Chandler, who also had wide experience in this work, and the two are now considered the balloon experts of Uncle Sam's Army.
Balloon to Rise Mile in Air.
The cigar-shaped bag has a capacity of 50,000 cubic feet of gas and a lifting capacity of about 1000 pounds. Baskets of different sizes are provided, to accommodate one, two or three men, as occasion requires. The largest of these balloons will have a much greater capacity, 78,000 feet of gas being used. It will carry seven men as high as a mile.
The ordinary rifle bullet does not seriously damage these large balloons, and would not result disastrously even though the bag were perforated by a hundred of them, because the leakage would be small and might be overcome by a discharge of ballast. The basket used in experimental work is of ordinary construction and material, but during actual warfare, some light bullet-proof material would be used. The greatest danger is from the big four-inch field guns. 
But one real test of ballooning in active operations has been made, and that was at Santiago, during the Spanish War. Many stories have been written of that ascension, but a member of the expedition says it accomplished very little, either in a practical or scientific way. This was due largely to the unpreparedness of those who made the trip. The paraphernalia at hand was not what was really needed, and the signal corps was not equipped to make the ascension successful. Capt. Wildman and his brother officers at Fort Omaha believe the balloon is destined to become a great part of land operations in times of war.
The telegraph and telephone divisions are this time receiving much attention. At the Exchange Building, a store room has been fitted up as a telegraph office, which will accommodate 100 students, and an instructor is provided. 
The school is operated four days each week, with two sessions each day. The office is fitted with what are known in telegraph circles as "squad" tables, at each of which four men work.
Signal Corps' Timely Work.
The benefit that may be derived from the signal corps in times of emergency was never better demonstrated than a few months ago during the earthquake at San Francisco, which destroyed all the telegraph offices and telephone stations, and practically cut off the stricken city from the world. The Signal Corps had a supply of apparatus on hand, and this was loaned to the telegraph companies, together with the services of 200 telegraphers and linemen. Probably this prompt action by Capt. Wildman, who was then stationed on the coast, did more to relieve the stricken San Francisco than any other single agency.
The flag and heliograph work at the fort is an interesting department. Any day that weather permits a visitor may see twenty or more men at work communicating across the parade ground by means of flags. These are of various colors and designs. The heliograph is an instrument whereby the operator is able to flash a ray of light to a distant point, possibly from one hill to another several miles away, in such a manner that the flashes are read either through the dash and dot system of the telegraph, or by some other code.
The getting under control of great fires during times of actual warfare has become of such importance that a special division known as the fire control division has been organized by the signal corps, and the men are given instruction in this work. 
The making up and management of signal construction trains is no small part of the business. The automobile already has become a part of this division, and is displacing the mule to a great extent. With an automobile, equipped with reels of wire and instruments, a field telegraph may be run in a very short time, and communication quickly made between important bodies or divisions of an army.

Transcription Notes:
Some commas looks like periods, so I typed them as periods.