Oakes weekly Republican. (Oakes, Dickey County, D.T. [i.e. N.D.]) 1883-1898, 1891-08-28
The Science of Rain. Making.

The experimenting OF the agriculture
oil department as q cloud-com-
peller has lent itself excellently to the
business OF the jester. 1t has afforded
capital opportunity for the hot
weather writer to poke iun at "Uncle
Jerry" and his balloons, says the Pio-
neer-Press, and the whole thing has
been treated in aspirit so jocular that
no one seems to have found time to in.
quire whether the proceeding is purely
empirical, or whether there may be a
real foundation OF scientific reasona-
bleness and probability beneath it,.
1t is high time to take the matter
seriously; and If success shall follow,
the subject will be considered gravely,
We have no doubt, in theupper arcana
OF the scientific world.
Meantime, the public, which has
quite accustomed itself to miracles in
these days ofelecGrical and other won
ders, has been fed on no stronger food
OF explanation than the asserted fact
that rains OF more or less copiousness
have generally followed great battles,
and that the precipitation has been
explained as an effect OF the cannon
aiding. Therefore it is that the agents
OF the government have gone Cunning
in the clouds, and that they do seem
to have brought down a few barrels
OF water at their first fire. Probably
ninety-nine out OF every hundred who
have heard OF it are satisfied to say
that the concussion produces rainfall
But why this should be, any more
than that the whistle OF q steamboat
should produce a snowstorm, we are
left to find out for ourselves.
In the absence of any authoritative
or even accepted theory, it does seem
that there may be a scientific fact below
the work otproducing rain artifcially,
and that the conclusion theory has
nothing whatever to do with it. For
there is certainly no scientific princl-
pie which we know OF tnat would ex-
plain knocking water out of a dry at
mosphere with a report, any more
than we could knock pulp out OF dry
orange peel with q club. This explain.
alton is OF the vulgar sort that pre-.
diets a wet season when the horns of
the moon are sufficiently depressed to
let it's contents run out. Like that
moon, it will not hold water. There
is, however, possibility which we do
not remember as subject of inquiry
anywhere. May it not happen that
rain follows detonation not as a.
consequence OF the shock, or OF
any disturbance of physical
substance, but as a result
OF the setting free and recon- 5ination
of gases? The combustion of powder
by the use OF fire arms on a large scale
does, as we know, liberate an enormous
amount OF gas, whose expansion is the
propelling power behind the proitctile,
Among the gases thus set free are
oxygen and hydrogen, in uncertain
qualities. Now If these gases combine
with each other in proper proportions,
the results, as any school boy knows,
is water vapor. And it ls at least
within the range of possibility that
here is a scientific fact which will
explain the relation between battles
and rain storms, which will make it
possible to bring abundant moisture
out of a desert atmosphere in which
it existed before only in infnitesimal
quantities, and which will work a far
greater revolution than that already
accomplished by meteorological OBJ
servations and the establishment of
the weather service. This is only a
hypothesis, which scientific observa,
ton may tear to shreds. But queer
things are happening down in Texas;
and the known facts connected with
the use of explosives certainly suggest
a better support Tor the future science
OF rain making than rutic' prognost-
ication or an old woman's saw.