ARE MARCONIGRAMS RAINMAKERS?

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 34, 23 January 1911, Page 7

ARE MARCONIGRAMS RAINMAKERS?

"1L t ■ or - tiuinv |>* ipJe in the Old Country v»ho «nt rt;iin the idea that the Mar<t in m ot wireless telegraphy has had a baleful influence on the weather, and is. in part at any rate, responsible .it the excessive number cl wet days with which we have b*c:i r.’ :«’•! during the past two year:-. I f when they have ailed this notion in public they have hui r.r.m nJtilly jeered at. But if Sir Gli'. 'V Lodge's ideas are correct, th" notion that the introduction of wireless telegraphy has interfered in '•Hi'-e way with our normal weather conditions i« not quite so foolish as it may s> em to mo-t people. During a lecture at Birmingham I’aiversity the otli»T day. Sir Oliver stated that if tire nation grant* d £piO.OOO a year to the universities for experiment he would apply electricity not only to accelerating plant growth hut to dispersng the fog from harbor .<::tions and influencing weather in clouds and rain. Sir Oliver lias since explained that he would not devote the sum named exclusively to these objects, but would apply it to research work in general. I showed in 1884 to the British Association at Montreal that the discharge of electricity into smokyair, or air laden with meallic fumes, would coagulate the partrcles. and so cause it to be deposited much more rapdly than if it were not electrified. Sir Oliver also showed that a steam cloud blown front a boiler into a bpll jar could be dissipated and turned in-

to fine rain by a discharge of elcctri- < city. The reason is that minute par- | tides of water in the cloud or mist [ aggregate together under electrical 1 influence, and, thus becoming larger, fall as a pctceptible shower. Tim same action, intensified, goes on in the neighbourhood of thunder-clouds aid causes the difference between thunder rain and ordinary rain ; the [ sni'dl drops mass themselves together t into big ones, and so fall with greater rapidity and violence. In countries where'rainfall is desired, said Sir Oliver, it would stvm. therefore, to be feasible to erect discharging stations. i t order to calls*, an assemblage of clouds, which sometimes disperse without any result, to give up ; their moisture. In countries which arc afflicted with too much rain he suggests that it may be possible, by erecting discharge stations round the coast, to prevent too many clouds penetrating into the interior, koi none ot th. <c things, however, does he vouch, sine" he has only made experiments on a small scab*. But on a small it is undoubtedly true that electrifying a cloud brings about the pns’ipitation of moisture. ” bother it will be so on a Large scale or ! not is a matter for experiment ; but it is well know n that the electrical state of the atmosphere and the kind of weather experienc«*d are closely connected. Which is cans*' and which i- ••tlcct iiiav b> uncertain, but Sir fibver titinks it i« very desirable t*> ‘ try the < xiwriment on a large .-calc. nl’ rh. r artif’callv altering th- el-etrieal «tat" of the atmosphe-e will not. at the same time, affect th'* ' weather.--Lemlon correspondent. November I s .