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[[underline]] A METHOD OF SENDING RECORDING APPARATUS TO, AND BEYOND, THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF THE ATMOSPHERE [[/underline]].

By R.H. Goddard.

[[underline]] IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT [[/underline]].

The greatest altitude at which soundings of the atmosphere have been made by balloons, namely about 20 miles, is but a small fraction of the height to which the atmosphere is supposed to extend. In fact, the most interesting, and in some ways the most important, part of the atmosphere lies in this unexplored region; a means of exploring which has, up to the present, not seriously been suggested.

A few of the more important matters to be investigated in this region are the following: the density, chemical constitution, and temperature of the atmosphere, as well as the height to which it extends. Other problems are of the nature of the aurora, and (with apparatus held by gyroscopes in a fixed direction in space) the nature of the ^[[α, β,]] and ^[[Ɣ]] radioactive rays from matter in the sun as well as the ultra-violet spectrum of this body.

Speculations have been made as to the nature of the upper atmosphere, -- those by Wagener [[superscript]] 1 [[/superscript]] being, perhaps, the most plausible. By estimating the temperature and percentage composition of the gases present in the atmosphere, Wagener calculates the partial pressures of the constituent gases, and concludes that 
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(1) A. Wagener.  Phys. Zeitschr. 12, pp. 170-178; 214-222, 1911.