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The formation and behavior of snow and ice crystals were a lifelong interest of Schaefer's, and in his time at General Electric he was able to focus on the subject during the World War II years as ice related to the safety of U.S. Air Force planes. Schaefer and Irving Langmuir's interest in that topic grew as a result of their World War II-era contract work with the military, and the experiments they conducted after the war's end led directly to their Project Cirrus contract in 1947—an undertaking so extensive that their work in that area merited its own series in this collection. Much of their foundational work in snow and ice composition and behavior was grounded in observations and experiments conducted on Mount Washington in New Hampshire. Schaefer discovered during this time that ice crystals and snowflakes could be captured and observed using Formvar plastic. Using this method, he documented very specific data about ice and snow before creating some of the first replicas of specific snowflake shapes. The work of Schaefer and his colleagues regarding ice research includes handwritten notes, drawings, charts, photographs, reports, and correspondence specific to ice, snow, and Mount Washington.

The inspiration for Schaefer's work with cloud seeding began during his experiments with Irving Langmuir during World War II. At that time they were under contract with the military for other weather-related reasons, but their research led them to wonder about the possibilities of controlling weather beyond military needs. Schaefer accomplished some of his most important foundational work with cloud seeding in 1946, before General Electric joined in another contract with the U.S. Navy, Air Force, and Army Signal Corps. These records document some of Schaefer's initial work with cloud seeding, before the official birth of Project Cirrus. Researchers will also find about a dozen files on Project Blowdown, a cloud seeding operation conducted in Honduras to aid the United Fruit Company.

Schaefer's correspondence files are arranged alphabetically by subject. They include letters sent and received by Schaefer as well as some to and from Irving Langmuir. Schaefer also retained letters that were to and from others at General Electric but carbon copied to him. While most of Schaefer's letters came to the archives grouped in large, general batches, some were retained separate from the larger groups. The archivist kept that arrangement, which is why certain letters are foldered individually or in very small groups while the majority of this subseries is simply categorized as "general".

These are reports and articles written by Vincent Schaefer that did not directly cover work done through Project Cirrus. Many are from his early days at General Electric when he was still a research assistant, covering topics such as surface chemistry. Any articles co-written by Schaefer and his colleagues are included in this subseries. Some articles and reports do discuss early cloud seeding issues but do not appear to be directly related to Project Cirrus. When in doubt, the archivist looked for credits or acknowledgements to the U.S. military to help determine how a certain article or report should be categorized. Please note that many of the articles are reprints, which are reflected in the folder dates. Some folders also include manuscripts of the published articles or reports, which is indicated in the folder title.