Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1914-11-11
Rains That Follow Battles

Rain-soaked battleflelds and floods
In the battle regions of France and
Galicia have revived or stimulate the
theory. long held by some men and
long ridiculed by others, that rain
can be produced by gunpowder or
dynamite. It is a theory that is tena-
cious of life. If 1t is dead SO far as
scientific minds are concerned, it still
lives in popular belief. If it is q dying
theory, it dies hard. The theory has
been denounced by men who have
tested it on scientific, or systematic
lines, and an intelligent reader must
know that great weight of judicious
opinion is against 1t. Still 1t is in
| teresting.
The theory that rain follows heavy
| cannon fire is not new. 1t is as old
as gunpowder 1t is based on the n.y.
| pothesis, or the conjecture, that the
explosions tend to mix air strata of
| different temperatures and that the
| cooling that follows is supposed to
| precipitate the moisture as rain.
| Another explanation is that the at
| mosphere being laden with moisture,
| conclusion caused by loud reports
or noises will often burst the cloud,
| with the natural result that the drops
| OF water 1ali 10 tue edfIu
The coincidence of rainfall and bat
tie have been remarked for centuries,
| but the weather bureau, by a PAINS
| taking analysis of all data on the sub
ject, has found no evidence to sustain
the battle-rain theory, and all evil
dence to contravene such a theory. II
has been pointed out that rain usually
falls in normal seasons every few
days There has been rain before
battles, during battles and after bat
ties. Nothing has been discovered to
connect rains with battles. The truth
is, a meteorologist has said, that the
atmospheric conditions that produce
| rains depend on air eddies a Thousand
miles in diameter, whose movement,
are on so vast a scale that they can
not be affected in the slightest degree
by any means at present known Il
man.
From time to time it has been re-
ported that rainmaking enterprises
operate in various parts of Europe an,
seek to break droughts that damage
agriculture If the explosions ar,
| continued long enough the drough
will, of course, be broken, but Their
has been a great waste of ammuni
ton. The rain was coming, anyway.
Historians of battles have writer
much of rain. Soon after the Eng
| IlSl llGBI SHSdStu olloAlion dI
mazda, in 1883, a severe storm brol
and wrecked or dispersed the Span
ish ships which the English guns ha,
not battered.
The remarkably bloody battle o
Blenheim, in 1904, was followed b,
such a downpour of rain that Mari
borough could not follow up the ad
vantages of his victory.
The fighting of Quatre Bras an
Ligny, June 16, 1916, was followe'
by the rains which, it is said, cos
Napoleon the battle of Waterloo tw
days later, because the fields wer
too soft for the French artillery t
maneuver
Downpours of rain accompanie
the siege of Sebastopol in 1854. an
men fought waist deep in water il
the trenches. Many battles of tn
American Civil War were followe
by rain. 1t is also true that man
| baseball games have been interrupte
or followed by rain, and it is noto
rious that circus shows also produc
rain.
The equinoctial storm is anotfe
of the rain theories which tn
weather bureau, as well as othe
meteoroiogists, say lfdoes not hol
water Storms do not occur oftens