Rain-making

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 34, 22 August 1907, Page 23

Rain-making

Up Oamaru way efforts have been made to shatter the long drought with high explosives, and to make the blessed rain of heaven fall upon the just and the unjust. The crowning effort, thus far,' to shake the precious treasures from a miser sky, was made on Monday. The special correspondent of the Dunedin ' Evening Star ' describes how 50ft of dynamite, 1101 bof guncottonton, 6511 of dynamite, and a judicious mixture of 1501 b 'of both explosives, were made to rend the air with long-resounding reverberations. Here is what-fol-lowed :—

' Each succeeding shot was followed by a heavier downpour of rain, but these augmented showers were only of short duration, and the rain again became light. It was noted tha C ' whereas the mist had come and gone previously, it intensified after each -successive shot until the whole country became enveloped. When the party left for home at 5.30 p.m. the appearances indicated that rain had set in. for several days. No information has so far been obtained as to what -had happened in the contiguous districts, though rain was apparently falling all round.'

But (adds our contemporary) the experiences are not viewed as determining 'the question as to the .value of explosions as a means of inducing rain. Further experiments* will probably be made at other stations in the course of a few- days.