Fog Broom

One afternoon last week a handful of Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists gathered on the private airport of Col. Edward Howland Robinson Green at Round Hill. Mass. On a scaffold 30 ft. over their heads, a 100-ft. length of slender pipe pointed a battery of nozzles across the field. The sun set and the dusk thickened. All eyes were turned toward Buzzards Bay, where a bank of fog was rolling inland. The men had been waiting for fog for days.

When the billowing white curtain had blotted out land and sky. Researcher Henry G. Houghton Jr. barked an order. Centrifugal pumps sent a high-pressure stream of liquid through the overhead pipe. Its nozzles hissed, and jets of Mr. Houghton's chemical cut into the fog like rapiers. The white sea seemed to divide, roll back like the Red Sea before Moses. Soon the watchers were looking through a half-mile tunnel of clear air, 30 ft. high, 100 ft. wide.

Fog is not vapor but water in fine particles. Having produced artificial fog in his laboratory. Researcher Houghton measured the size of the droplets by trapping them on greased slides, found them to vary from .0008 to .0004 of an inch. He sought a chemical means of making them combine into drops big enough to fall of their own weight. Having found it and used it last week at Round Hill, he now thinks ocean liners might use it to sweep their paths clear, airports might use it to help incoming planes land.

Convinced of the efficacy of Mr. Houghton's fog broom, newshawks last week rushed to him with demands for the chemical formula. Mr. Houghton put up his hands. "That," he smiled, "is a secret."

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