ARTIFICIAL RAIN.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2230, 21 July 1891, Page 3

ARTIFICIAL RAIN.

The Government of the United States have just received an additional 7000dol for experiments upon the clouds. Last year, Senator Farwell secured an appropriation of 2000dols. for the cost of sending ballons Avith explosives high up in the air, and thus dispersing the clouds in rain ; but the money Avas not enough to carry on the experiments Avith the necessary completeness. None of the explosives used Avere free from serious disadvantages, but noAV it is proposed to employ a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen in tbe same proportions as Avater itself is made from, and to explode this mixture several hundred feet above the surface by means of Avires attached to a ground battery. The result of such an explosion would be water in a divided form, and the force expended in making a single drop from the constituent gases would be ample to squeeze out from clouds for miles around Avhatever rain they might hold. The mere conception of “ artificial rain” seems in the minds of old-fashioned people to trench someon sacrilege, but if these experiments are successful, the world will be surprised to realise that so simple a difficulty as drought should have escaped solution. In theory, too, the conductors of these experiments hold that som6 rain ahvays exists everyAvhere, and point to the fact that in areas of habitual drought, relief comes Avith a thunderclap. In another matter, science has just achieved a victory Avhich, though small in itselt, is of great economical importance. Last year, the neAVspapers expended all their poAvers of sarcasm and ridicule upon an appropriation made by one of the Avestern States, to enable their official entomologist to prosecute investigations into a disease Avhich he had named the “ chinch bug cholera,” By carefully spreading the diseased bugs In regions Avhere the insects were as yet healthy, the State has been rapidly freed from this destructive pest, and the scoffers now frankly apologise for their former bad behaviour.