HOW RATN IS FORMED.* 



By H. F. Blanfokd, F. R. S. 



In certain villages in Mie Indian Central Provinces, besides the vil- 

 lage blacksmith, the village acconntant, the village watchman, and the 

 like, there is an official termed the (japogari, whose dnty it is to make 

 rain. So long as the seasons are good, and the rain comes in due sea- 

 son, his office is no doubt a pleasant and lucrative one. It is not very 

 laborious, and it is obviously the interest of all to keep him in good 

 hnmor. But if, as sometimes happens, the hot dry weather of April 

 and May is prolonged through June and July, and week after week the 

 rijot sees his young sprouting crops withering beneath the pitiless hot 

 winds, public feeling is wont to be roused against the peccant rain- 

 maker, and he is led forth and iieriodically beaten until he mends his 

 ways and brings down the much-needed showers. 



You will hardly expect me, and I certainly can not pretend, to impart 

 to you the trade-secrets of the professional rain-maker. Like some other 

 branches of occult knowledge which Madam Blavatsky assures us arc 

 indigenous to India, this art of rain-making is perhaps not to be acquired 

 by those who have been trained in European ideas ; but we can at least 

 watch and interrogate nature, and learn something of her method of 

 achieving the same end ; and if her scale of operations is too large for our 

 successful imitation, we shall find that not only is tliere much in it that 

 may well challenge our interest, but it may enable us to some extent to 

 exercise i)revision of its results. 



Stated in the most general terms, nature's process of rain-making is 

 extremely simi)le. We have its analogue in the working of the com- 

 mon still. First, we have steam or water vapor produced by heating 

 and evaporating the water in the boiler; then the transfer of this vapor 

 to a cooler; and finally we have it condensed by cooling, and recon- 

 verted into water. Heat is communicated to the water to convert it 

 into vapor, and when that heat is withdrawn from it, the vapor returns 

 to its original liquid state. Nature performs exactly the same process. 



In the still, the water is heated until it boils ; but this is not essential, 



* A lecture delivered at the Hythe School of Musketry ou November 19, 1888, — 

 {Nature, January 3, 1889, vol. xxxix., pp. 224-229.) 



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