v BELIEF AND EVIDENCE 111 



facts or events which are contrary to a cherished convic- 

 tion, and remember only those which support it, is respon- 

 sible for the existence of this and many other like beliefs. 



So firm is the fallacy as to explosions causing rain 

 that in the year 1911 a member of the House of Commons 

 asked the First Lord of the Admiralty in Parliament 

 " whether he would arrange for the fleet to carry out 

 their heavy gun-firing practice round the coast at 

 some other period of the year than in the middle of 

 the harvest-time, when the resulting heavy rain may 

 cause serious loss to the farming community." The 

 reply was that "there is no evidence that the firing 

 causes heavy rain," but this only meets belief with 

 denial. Though the argument is not strictly scientific, 

 perhaps the most convincing form of reply to those who 

 profess to believe, or do believe, in the efficacy of gun- 

 firing to produce rain, is to point out that the firing of 

 big guns is carried on at Shoeburyness more frequently 

 than at any other point on the coast, yet the mean 

 rainfall at Shoeburyness, and on the coast of Essex 

 generally, is the lowest in the British Isles. 



It is commonly believed that during severe thunder- 

 storms a bolt is sometimes discharged from the clouds 

 and reaches the earth as a solid mass of stone or metal. 

 There is, however, not a particle of material evidence in 

 support of this belief. No thunderbolt originating in 

 the clouds has ever been found, and none exists, whatever 

 conviction may be held to the contrary. What are 

 mistaken for thunderbolts as popularly understood are 

 peculiar mineral objects, meteorites, or particles of soil 

 or rock which have been fused by lightning striking 

 the earth through them. 



Masses of a metallic or stony nature do fall from the 

 sky occasionally, but they have nothing to do with 



