The Wichita daily eagle., 1891-09-18
THE PRICE TO BE PAID.
To the Editor of the Eagle.

| Is 10 prepare the miUu lOE tt0 1udi fcI-
Gus" and to invest the most absurd
theories with the apparent possibility OF
truth.
So true is this fact that not only are
practical men, but men of science on
tiptoe are hoping TO see rain brought
from the clouds by some explosive sub
stance, whether such air is supplied with
a proper amount of moisture IL the
form of vapor or not.
If the mist that goes up from the
water and moist land in the form OF
"vapor" is not a fundamental, an abso-
lutely indispensable element in the rain
problem, then scientific men might be
pardoned for such stupid blunder! The
atmosphere that envelopes this globe Is
not of itself a vast storehouse of
moisture which may be punctured or
violently disturbed, and copious showers
will fall. On the contrary humidity, IN
its vapory form, is not component ele-
ment of the air. Itmay co-exlst, or the
air may contain but little or no moisture.
All know that heat converts the water
and surface moisture into vapor. This
vapor asceHds to the air and IS stored IN
the tiny air cells and thus held in latent
state till some atmospheric change oc-
ours, when it will again be precipitated
4 in the form of rain. The air may be and
often is surcharged with vapor, or it
| NAV contain very little moisture. If in
the former state, the rain may be heavy;
if in the latter state, little and most gen.
orally no rain at all. In fact the degree
of moisture or humidity in our air over
all the sub-arid belt is a question of
prime significance. If the air is well
filled with vapor, rain will be abundant
for crop. If the degree of saturation
of the air is light, there will be but little
rain. Hence it follows that the price
that we who live on this plain belt must
pay for good crops is an increase of water
and surface moisture, from which nature
in her most wonderful laboratory, can
manufacture vapor to assist IN better
saturation of the air. 1t is possible when
the air is full of humidity, as it often is
in the vicinity of streams of some size,
that the heavy cannonading OF con-
tending armies may assist the preclplta-
ton, and this may be true of dynamite
or some other explosive substance OF
great violence. But the reader cannot
fail to see that the value of the effect of
of such disturbing forces depends en-
tirely on the fact that the air Is already
surcharged with vapor.
We cannot enter into a description
of reasons why it is possible that cannon
aiding, electricity or dynamite may assist
precipitation when the air is surcharged
with vapor. But it must be evident that
if the presence of a considerable amount
of vapor in the air is indispensable to
rain, that in the absence of such humid
ity, no disturbing force can cause it to
fall.
The expedients now resorted to to
cause rain proceed necessarily on the
hypothesis that our atmosphere, in a
normal condition, contains the elements
which, if only set free, rain will follow.
Here is the grave mistake. The air, as
a matter of fact, in subarid region,
changes through all the degrees of sat
uration from to 100 per cent. Science
tells us that if the temperature be 20 de-
grees that / 30-100 grains of vapor
Troy weight will saturate it, but If the
temperature be put at 100 degrees Ear
enheight) that it will require IL 79-1O0
grains to saturate ! Hence the folly of
supposing that any explosive, no matter
how violent, can give any practical rain.
fall when the air does not contain the
moisture to be precipitated.
If rain is plenty over the interior dry
belt of this continent up to the last of
June or the middle of July, the air will
generally be supplied with moisture for
rainfall until late in the summer. But
ha
and the summer rains light and the
surface water has passed from the
surface and out of the country by the
middle of June, the chances are two to
one that the air from the South rim of
the north temperate and the north
margin of the sub-tropical, when the air
is heated to 100 degrees, and has not the
moisture to give it vapor, that it will
moore northwardly in space, detected
some eastwardly by the motion of the
earth, and in its wild and wlerd march
will destroy the most of vegetable life on
the plain beltl The process is simple
The heated air deficient in humidity and
no water present to give vapor, the
moisture of the crop-life passes to the air
to supply the needed vapor!"
If this be true, is it not evident that |
water and surface moisture is the price |
we must pay on these lands for good
crops?
In this letter we can not discuss the |
question as to how this may be done or
whether it is possible for man to aid in
work so important to the age.
One thing is certain, VIZ: That all |
the known lands of our physi- |
cal globe, when understood, are found |
to be in harmony with the best and |
highest interests of man. The laws of |
qualification of our clouds and air not /
only hold the more dense and better sat
urated air close to the earth's surface
under the law Of gravity, but it must be
evident that the air of celestial space"
by reason of having a low temperature
is already supplied with vapor, hence
man has only to do with that strata of
the air which rests Immediately on the
earth.
Can he influence such strata so as to
the vapor2 In the east of our
own and other lands he has denuded the
forests, DESTROYED the leaves that hold
the water. He has done more; he has
drained the swamp, and underdrained
the land till the land Of many sections is
much more dry than i: was and less Ger
tain of rain. If man accomplished this
much, is it not possible that by irrigation
and by outstanding the waste water Of
our mountains and streams and
making lakes and ponds to
hold the water till il can be
into vapor in the last of July
md CARRIED, under the kindly law Of
lateral saturationn with the air. that
his plain belt viii have an increase of
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