The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1895-04-11
A New and Wonderful
Suggestion
For Providing Climatic
Changes.
A Pipe Line from the Tropics to the
Arctic, with the United States
away Station.

bureau take control OF
the weather and run things to suit the
personal convenience of the greatest |
number? Will we make it rain when
we wish rain, bring cooling breezes |
from the Arctic circle and balmy |
breaths from the sunny South? In |
short, is man-directed weather one |
day to succeed the caprice of nature, |
just as the ocean steamship has sue
ceeded the system of following the |
stars?
In a word, so far as mans conven-
ience and comfort are concerned, has
science just begun upon the wonderful
things which one day it will work out
for him? Is the edge of the future
still a rosy dawn of unfulflled prom
Use?
A bold and daring electrical engineer
of London, in an article written for
one of the London technical papers,
has advanced the proposition that a
few years hence making rain by cleo
tricity will be regarded as no more
wonderful than the endeavOr to sup
ply the motive power for the machin-
cry of a half dozen states from Nj
agara is today. Nor does he see any
reason why the climate should not be
ny IuC Sdue dSeuCy.
The author of the article, Sidney f.
Walker, is among the younger and
more daring of English electricians.
He declares that, Judged by the age
of other branches of science, electric
ity is still an infant, with all it's man.
hoods work yet to accomplish" He
declares that the future of electricity
holds in view, first, the gradual utiliza-
tion of the forces of nature known as
wind and water power, to the gradual
displacement of coal. At irregular
periods the world is startled by the
cry, "What will become of us when
our coal supply fails?" Long before
that period is reached, Mr.. Walker
asserts, coal itself will have to fight
for it's life as an Industrial product,
just as gas is now doing, the antagO-
mist being wind and water power, de-
Ilivered where required in the shape
of electrical energy.
Concerning Mr.. Walkers bold pre-
ldictions, Professor F. B. Crocker, of
columbia college, who ranks with the
most eminent electrical scientists of
this country and Europe, in reply to
Questions said:
lit is difficult for the most conserva-
tive man to set any bounds to the pos
lsibilities of what electricity will one
day accomplish. OF course, there is
one great fallacy in the popular mind,
land that is that we know very little
labout electricity. On the contrary,
we know a great deal. Electricity is
today one of the most exact of all the
sciences. On the other hand, it is
perfectly fair to say that we have
J hardly begun to put this agency to
the various uses which will be made
of it in the future. In word, while
we know a great deal about it, we
have only just begun to perfect me-
chanical devices for applying and
utilizing it.
81 do not know that it would be at
all impossible to make rain by cleo
itricity The discoveries of Lord Ray
leigh and Professor Oliver Lodge are
very well known to science, and have
: led to many interesting experiments
For example, a current of electricity
applied to a broken or interrupted jet
of water will make the stream perfect
ly smooth and continuous. One great
: difficulty in making rain by this means
would be that Of securing an effective
: discharge of the fluid. However, ii
: might be feasible to send up a balloon
from which could be suspended a
large circular ring, with large num-
Der of sharp points sticking outward
and connected by fine wire with a
high tension dynamo or influence ma
: chine below Whether this would Sc
cure the desired end, am not sure
as air, you know. is very bad con
ductor. 1t is thing that would have
to be exhaustively tested by actual
experience"
Professor Crocker suggested that
lperhaps, the greatest difficulty to over
come would be that of effecting the
discharges of electricity in the proper
places and at the desired attitudes.
"Why not by means of air ships
Do you regard the successful air ship
as more than ten years off?'
mo; perhaps not replied Professor
Crocker 81 think it is entirely prob.
able that within another decade we
shall have solved practically the ques-
ton of aerial navigation. Not that
! this problem is so very easy. But it
presents no more difficulties than hun
dreds of other similar mechanical
problems have, and there is no more
reason to suppose that we shall not
build successful air ship than there
was reason to suppose a hundred
years ago that steam could not be ap-
piled to the propulsion of train of
cars along a smooth track or of a ship
Iacross the ocean. And, of course, if
we get an air ship that can be easily
operated and will carry a considerable
weight, then it will be very easy to
load a ship with storage batteries con-
tanning big electrical supply, sail up
into the clouds, and discharge the
electricity wherever we want it. In a
word, if it is found that we can make
rain by an electrical discharge, and
we want to do it, it will not be very
long before we shall find ways and
means of doing it.
"Of course, it would still remain to
be seen whether there is actually
enough moisture in the areas of the
great West to precipitate considera-
BILE rainfall.
81 do not know that I clearly under
stand the suggestion as to utilizing
the heat of the tropics to modify the
Temperature of colder climes. The
suggestion may be simply to utilize
the heat of the suns rays by means
of solar engine for the creation of
electricity. This could be transmitted
long distances. You know in the trop-
les, where the suns rays are intense,
the solar energy develops a force of
about one horse power to each square
Iyard of the surface exposed. Inas-
lmuch as the suns action is very near
lily continuous in the day time, and
ibut a little interrupted by clouds, this
|force Is fairly reliable.
"But 1t seems to me there may be
Ia much simpler device than this for