CLOUDS FROM AEROPLANES

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 279, 21 August 1919, Page 5

CLOUDS FROM AEROPLANES

The following extract froui a letter i written bv Captain Ward E. Wells, 60th j Infantry, A.E.E., vo his brother Everett i D. Wells, of Nashua, lowa, is communi- I caled by tlio latter to "Tlio Scientific | American" (New York, Juno 7):— ] "The first part of October last wo j spent several days in the Bois de Hess ! waiting to take over a part of the front i line in the Argonn9. Tho shell-holes j from tho first great Verdun battle were ! so thick that there were 110 patches of ! ground large enough to accommodate even j a pup tent, and from any of the war pictures you can imngino what was left of the trees. Then were two or three days of rain, when came a wonderfully clear and beautiful morning, with not a clond in sight. At the time, some miles ahead, there was »omg on an especially terrific bombardment. Our attention : was first drawn to the sky by tho sud- ; den appearance of sevoral strnngo and i startling clouds—long, graceful, looping J ribbons of white. These were tapering : to a point at one end, and at the other, i where they dissolved into nothingness, j sixty degrees across the sky. were about ' as broad as tho width of a linger held arm's distance from tho eye. On close observation wo noticed some distance ahead of each cloud-point tho tiny speck »f a chasse plane. Apparently the churning of ill" air was all that was needed to upset the delicately balanced meteorological conditions and precipitate this stvange cloud-formation. I had seen ships°lcavo their tracks in tho clouds, similar to those of little sea animals 111 the wet 6ands at tho shore, but never before had I seen a piano writing in white upon tho bine slate of tlie sky."