Linda Hall, age 12, of Gastonia,, N,C,,

'Inside moat weather stations, you will find an instrument called meteorograph ‑ a weather writer, It keeps a written record of hours of cloudiness and sunshine, the rainfall and the snow and the wind with its speeds and direction  The meteorograph uses electrical equipment to connect it with instruments working outdoors and a series of sensitive needles which record the changing information on a revolving drum 

The wind instrument is placed high outdoors 3n an open place where it can catch the breezes  It may be an aerovane which is a more advanced version of the handsome weather vane; It may be an anemometer, which is descended from a pretty little toy, The first part of the word anemometer may remind you of the beautiful anemone flower, which is not surprising  The name of the waxy anemone means wind flower and anemometer means wind measurer,

The toy ancestor of the anemometer is, of all things the pretty pinwheel  The pointed petals of the pinwheel are arranged in a circle  The canter of the circle is faxed with a pin to the top of a stick  The pin must be fixed just right  If it is too tight, the wheel cannot turn, If it is too loose, the wheel will wobble 

The wind, of course, is moving air blowing from a certain direction  It tries to move things out of the way and keep going in the same direction  The faster it blows, the more strength it has to move objects out of its path  A gentle breeze can move the leaves and twigs, A strong, fast blowing gale can uproot a tree 

The blowing breezes try to move the pinwheel out of the way, pockets of air get trapped in the pointed petals and push  The petals move, but they do not blow along with the breeze, Since the circle is fixed to a stick, they move around to the less windy aide of the circle 

Meantime, more pockets are air filled and push the petals to follow each other around and around, The faster the wind blows, the stronger it pushes the pinwheel around 

Instead of pointed petals, the anemometer has three metal cups, each fixed to a short metal rod  The rods are arranged flat like a wheel and set at the top of a sturdy pole, The blowing wind fills the metal cups and pushes them around, dust as it did the petals of the pinwheel  The faster the wind blows, the faster the anemometer whirls  The speed of its whirling gives the speed of the  wind and the information is sent down to be recorded by the meteorograph in the weather station,

The aerovane, or work‑a‑day weather vane, looks somewhat like a model airplane set on a pole, However, it does not have airplane wings and it works back to front  At the bank is a little three bladed propellor which is whirled around by the wind like a pinwheel  The front of the aerovane is somewhat like the upturned tail of a plane  It points its nose into the wind, dust like the rooster on the weather vane, and tells the direction from which the breezes are blowing  This information is relayed down to an electric indicator.