You and I are tiny little fish, living at the bottom, or nearly so, of a swirling, churning, ever changing ocean of gas. It stretches upward and outward nearly 600 miles, expanding and thinning as it reaches for the vast nothingness of space.

In the outer fringes of the stratosphere, eternal darkness reigns, and is pierced now and then by the tornadic passage of some heavenly visitor burning its way through our atmosphere.

This stuff we breath and fly in is called air, but is made up of many different gasses. Nitrogen makes up 78.03 per cent of the whole and oxygen counts about 20.99 per cent. Numerous other elements finish the formula in minute amounts. They are: Argon 0.9323 per cent; carbon-dioxide 0.03; hydrogen 0.01; neon 0.0018; krypton 0.0001; helium 0.0005; ozone 0.00006; and a very elusive fellow called xenon 1.000009 per cent.

From sea-level to the dome, 600 miles up, this gaseous sea is called atmosphere. Up to about 36,000 feet, we live in an area known as the troposphere. Above that, to the end of atmosphere as we know it, lies the mysterious and adventure-beckoning stratosphere. Between the two, the troposphere and the stratosphere, is a mythical line referred to as the trapopause.

At sea-level, where some of us live, a column of this air one inch square and extending to the top of the atmosphere would weigh 114.7 pounds. Actually, in Kosciusko county, we live at between 700 and 800 feet above sea-level and folks the world around reside at different levels.

This ocean of air above us behaves in a most unusual manner in relation to the oceans of water which surround us. In the sea you can depend up it--for every 34 feet down you go, the weight of water above becomes 15 pounds heavier per square inch and so on, and so on, and so on.

But does the air we breathe act in that nice lady-like manner? Not a bit of it. It stretches as it soars upward. The pressure decreases out of all proportion to the distance up. Although the atmosphere or traces of it, exist as high as 600 miles, more than half of the total weight of it is below 17,000 feet. It's pretty well compressed down here where we live.

There are several distinct belts, or interesting sections of this atmosphere to note. Man can live pretty well up to 10,000 feet, he must have oxygen to survive for long. Lack of oxygen for an appreciable length of time does irreparable damage to the human brain. Flights over this altitude are usually made in comfortably-heated, pressurized cabins.

The most interesting change takes place at 36,000 feet. For above that natural dividing line there is no weather as we know it. The gas is just too think to support even a self-respecting cloud. It is always clear up there and the temperature is even all the time. Before you fall in love with this place, let me tell you that the constant temperature is 67 degrees below zero. This area is the stratosphere, where future high-speed flying will be done--with out regard to weather.

Before we become any giddier, let's get back down to that insignificant patch in the grand scheme of things. Warsaw Indiana where the air pressure is in the neighborhood of 14 to 15 pounds per square inch. Take a deep breath. Maybe it will get summer one of these days and we can fly in that gas instead of write about it--or both.

Warsaw Daily Times Wed. Apr. 14, 1948