488 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



center near Keeler, about ninety miles east of Pixley. Here tlie 

 storm center remained for thirty-six hours, while the storm was 

 gradually breaking up over its northern part, as shown by the three 

 following maps, and not until the map of Wednesday morning is 

 there an indication of an eastward movement of the storm, while 

 as late as 5 p, m. of Wednesday, January 31st, rain was reported at 

 Keeler. During Monday and Tuesday light rains were reported 

 over nearly all parts of the State, and on Tuesday it rained at 

 Pixley. 



From these data we see that the local rainfall produced by 

 the Baker process at Pixley was i)art of a storm which extended 

 over a large part of British Columbia, over Washington, Oregon, 

 California, Utah, Nevada., and Arizona, and which had its center 

 for thirty-six hours within ninety miles of Pixley, and that the 

 weather forecasts sent -out from San Francisco on Monday morn- 

 ing at five o'clock predicted rain for the region about Pixley for 

 Tuesday afternoon or night. As a matter of fact, it rained at 

 Pixley on Tuesday night, as had been predicted by Mr. Pague 

 thirty-six hours before. 



I have referred to this special case, not because it differs in any 

 essential particular from other well-authenticated cases, but be- 

 cause one typical example which any one can verify is worth a 

 great amount of generalizing, and because this particular instance 

 has been so prominently mentioned by the press of the State. 



And now I wish to say a few words about the methods of some 

 of the best known of the professional " rain-makers.^' For most of 

 the following data I am indebted to a paper read by Prof. Alex- 

 ander Macfarlane, of the University of Texas, before the Texas 

 Academy of Science. 



Powders. In 1870 Mr. Edward Powers, of Delavan, Wis., pub- 

 lished a collection of statistics in a volume entitled War and the 

 Weather. By means of these statistics he seeks to establish the 

 remarkable fact that battles are followed by rain. He does not 

 prove that battles are necessarily accompanied by rain, or that a 

 day of battle is followed more quickly by rain than a day of no 

 battle. Having, however, apparently convinced himself of the 

 value of his argument, he at once adopted the universal American 

 expedient of proving his claim, and petitioned Congress for an 

 appropriation to make a suitable test. Two hundred siege guns 

 which lie idle at the Rock Island Arsenal were to be taken to a 

 suitable locality in the West, and one hundred rounds to be fired 

 from them in each of two tests. The estimated cost of the experi- 

 ment was to be one hundred and sixty-one thousand dollars. He 

 does not tell us how the molecular vibration caused by the sound 

 and heat of the firing is to lessen the molecular vibration of the 

 air and cause the vapor molecules to come to rest. 



