The record-union., 1899-05-25

somewhere sure. However. they admit
that liquid air will be of great advan-
tage in hospital service in keeping
things cool in competition with solidi-
fed water, as an explosive and for uses
as power in a small way, though it is
stoutly asserted that it never can take
the place of steam. LIQUID air is still in
the experimental stage, and a few years
of hard work will be requisite to see
what can be done with it, and a liquefy
ing of air certainly is great achieve
ment All admit that.
RAINMAKING SUPERSTITION.
Fresno Democrat: 1t is astonishing
that in these days of scientific progress
that monied and other men, usually ac-
credited with ordinary comman sense,
would even listen to the propositions of
an alleged rain-maker. Yet Los An
geles and Pasadena monied men and
land owners are all agog over the prop
ositions of rain fakir, who agrees for
$4,000 to produce a storm, which will
precipitate one inch of wetness over a
radius Of fifteen square miles. Pasa-
denans are about ready to take up the
scheme and deposit the money. And
| many business men in Los Angeles are
this faker.
Since the Dyrenforth outfit squan-
dered $4,000 of Government appropria-
ton and almost a like amount Of,
wealth put up by stock growers, in
vain attempt to produce rain by bonn
harding the heavens in the vicinity of
the "C' ranch down in Texas; since
Melbourn, the Australian "rain-ma-
ker," worked the people of Western
Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming with
his mysterious" gas machine for va
rlous sums of money to induce rain
which didn't induce. and various other
takers tramped the arid and semi arid
regions claiming to be rain makers, in
teliigent people who read daily news
papers and leading weeklies should ex-
hibit sense enough to let these travel
ing rain takers severely alone and not
encourage them in their attempts to
defraud the people who don't think.
Rain makers, like the medicine men
in Indian and savage tribes, have fig
ured in history for hundreds of years,
but not one of them by incarnation,
exhortion, mechanism or explosives,
has ever succeeded in producing even
{. drzzle. Rains or showers that have
at distant intervals fallen after at
tempts to make" it have always been
claimed by these cranks or takers, but
they were mere condolences and in no
| instance have they ever been produced
| by artificial means
SMALLPOX.
| Redland Facts: Smallpox has been
stamped out III Los Angeles, with
promptnesS and in manner which re-
| fleets great credit upon the ability Of
the health officers of that city. Every
| large city, however, has periodical at
tacks of this kind, which cannot be
avoided, and in some of the largest
cities of the civilized world, the disease
| is always in evidence. 1t is an adjunct
of all close and extensive conglomera-
| tions of peoples of different opinions,
order of intelligence, and habits of
| cleanliness and health. Except when
| epidemic, it, therefore, seems some
what unnecessary, to say the least, to
advise outsiders to keep away from
such place, as infectious diseases Of
some kind are never absent from
thickly settled communities, like our
| large cities. Los Angeles has nipped
the attack sin the bud,' and even the
supersensitive can visit the place with
Out fear.