The Fort Worth gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-189?, 1891-04-23
WEATHER-S
April Weather avorab!e to the
Growing Crops.
AGRICULTURAL METEOROL0GY.
Influence Being Brought to Bear Upon
Secretary RusI,-Experiments at Ram
Making a Failure-Free Plant
ing VIII Pay Eetter.
Special to the Gazette.

Special to the Gazette.
ST. JOSEPH, Mo, April Isl have given
forecasts of the very cnangeable weather to
occur from the 10th to the Goth and the nu-
merOuS storm waves that will cross the con-
tinent during that period, including some
of the coolest weather and heaviest frosts
of the month. The last storm wave of the
month will be due 20 leave the Pacific coast
about the 2Sth, cross the Rocky-Allegheny
valley from - to May l and reach the At
lantic coast about May >. The low barome-
ter of this storm will take northern route,
causing very warm weather preceding ii in
most of the states. The rains from this
storm will not be so heavy as were those OF
the middle third of the month, and follow
ing it will be but little frost in the United
States. The cool wave that will follow this
storm will not cause much of drop in the
temperature, and altogether the weather
will be favorable to the growing crops.
The month of May will have few not
able and severe storms. but the month Will
be calm as compared with that of June.
The heaviest storm of May will occur dur
ing the first half of the month. and the
heaviest rains during the last half. From
May II TO y viii be colder than either the
first or last part of the month, and frostS
NAV occur north of the fortieth degree from
the 18th to Goth.
The demand for department of agricult-
ural meteorology in connection with the
Washington weather bureau is becoming
general in the agricultural states. Boards
of Trade and farmers organizations are
passing resolutions on the subject, which
they send to Secretary Rusk at Washing
ton If the editors of weekly papers would
take up this matter and each send an edl-
torial from their paper TO Secretary Ruskit
would have great influence in the matter.
10 M n a . l.
edge that can be obtained, and the earliest
possible information about the condition
and quantity of the crops of the world, and
this result can be attained only through 4
department of agricultural meteorology.
SCIENCE AND WEATHER NOTES.
The last congress appropriated money
with which to experiment in making
rain. 1t is believed that great battles
cause rain because of gunpowder explo-
sons but this belief was as prevalent
before the invention of guupowder as
now. A corps of professionals have been
organized and will send dynamite booms
far up into the atmosphere and explode
them. This will not produce rain to any
practical extent, but if by continuous eNplo-
sions on the ground rising atmospheric
spiral can be produced they may sue
coed better. Before any practical results
can be produced a rising column of air
must be established so that the moist air
will flow in from all sides. There are
more conditions of the atmosphere than one
that cause rain, but the low barometer and
rising column of air are absolute necesSi-
ties. although the low barometer may be a
thousand miles from the rain. Before an
extended rain storm can be organized
there must be an electric circuit formed
with high and low barometer. A dyna-
mite boom exploded in rain cloud would
probably cause rainfall from that part of
the cloud reached by the pressure from
the exploding boom, but that would not
be extensive enough to pay expenses.
Besides, this rain could not be obtained from
any but an atmosphere that is laden with
moisture and such atmosphere is always
moving from high to low barometer,
the two constituting an organized storm,
and that storm would have to be broken
up before the rain could be in
duced to fall outside of its destination.
The natural batteries of the atmosphere
are too powerful to be broken up by the
feeble contrivances of man, and when
these experiments at rain-laking have
been tested the country will probably con-
clude that it will pay better to make
appropriations for tree planting and
department of agricultural meteorology.
We know that trees will bring rain.
The orbit of Mercury is still very much
like that Of a comet, for at perihelion it is
only IS, 119, 716 miles from the sun, while at
the comets have passed TO the stage of a
planet, as in the case of Mercury, the
changes in its orbit are extremely slow,
but the proof that these orbits become more
and more nearly circle is incontestible,
while in the Oldest planets, as in the case of
the earth and Venus, the change almost en-
tirely ceases. The earth's orbit will per-
haps never become perfect circle, because
in winter, the sun being over the Southern
hemisphere, which is nearly all waters
causes a great expansion of the atmosphere
by the increased evaporations of water and
that expansion, which is completed by the
1st of March, gives the earth greater vol
ume and buoyancy, which causes it to float
more than three millions of miles farther
from the sun in June than in December.
About the middle of March the sun enters
that part of the earth where most of the
land surface is, the rainfall increases, the
atmosphere condenses and the earth again
falls back nearer the sun As the orbit of
our earth is now changing very little, if
any, conclude that it is one of the oldest
planets in the solar system, while Mer-
cury's cometary orbit proves it to be the
youngest.
From what have said about electricity
il Is very clear why comet after making
its first revolution around the sun again
shoots OF and is lost to telescope sight in
the unknown depths Of space. As the
comet nears the sun its electric currents
become more intense and this increases its
electric atmosphere, thus increasing its
bueyancy, as though walnut log in water
were suddenly changed to cork, and as it
nears the sun its electric currents turn its
moisture into gases. The momentum of
the rapid flying comet is sufficient to drive
it around the sun just as we may shoot