RAIN-MAKERS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1315, 13 May 1897, Page 12

RAIN-MAKERS.

Another rain-maker has appeared, this time in the person of Professor O. Smith, of San Francisco, who claims that by the use of five different chemicals the nature and constitution of which is his secret, he can make rain fall at will. At times we have quite as much rain as we require, and it is to b 9 hoped, therefore, that he will defer his experiments in this country until a period of drought. The attempt to cause rainfall at will has been made very frequently in past years, but so far little success has attended any of these efforts,' although the enthusiastic by whom they were undertaken would not hear of the possibility of failure. As long ago as 1840 Espy endeavoured to interfere with nature’s laws; but while his theory was more philosophical than that of any of his successors, nothing came of it. His idea was that by means of large fires ascending currents of heated air would be produced, causing changes of current in the atmosphere and generating vapour. Twenty years later an officer of the French army, who, while on service in Africa, had observed that rain usually followed a heavy discharge of artillery, vainly endeavoured to enlist the aid of the French Academy of Sciences in a series of experiments for producing rain by means of oxplosive?. Tho experiments of Professor Dyceforth, in Texas, a few years ago were on the same lines as those suggested by the French artillery officer. The United States Government supplied the professor with a large quantity of powerful explosives, made him a liberal grant, paid a selected staff of expert assistants, and in every way possible contributed to promote the success of the experiment. Huge charges of dynamite, gun-cotton* and other fulminates wore exploded, and the clouds were persistently stormed at with heavy ordnance, but all the sound and fury ended in smoke, for only a mere sprinkling of rain fell to reward the experiments, and that would probably have come down in the natural order of things without any of the fuss that was made.” We have been treated with some rather tall stories of Professor Smith’s success with his five mysterious chemicals, but until these statements are properly authenticated the doubts as to the power of man to produce artificial rain will remain.