SECTION TENTH. 



ARTIFICIAL RAINS. 

 [From the National Gazette.] 



204. MESSRS. EDITORS, Knowing the difficulty, if not 

 the impossibility, of making the subject intelligible in a 

 short newspaper article, it is with reluctance that I am now 

 induced, after much earnest solicitation from my friends, 

 both near and remote, to give a very brief summary of the 

 reasons and FACTS, which have led me to desire, that an ex- 

 periment should be made to see whether rain may be pro- 

 duced artificially in time of drought. 



The documents which I have collected on this subject, if 

 they do not prove that the experiment will succeed, do at 

 least prove that it ought to be tried ; this, I trust, will most 

 satisfactorily appear when they shall be published entire. 

 In the meantime it has become necessary to present to the 

 public something on the subject, lest longer silence might 

 be construed into an abandonment of the project. 



First, It is known by experiment, that if air should be 

 expanded into double the volume by diminished pressure, 

 it would be cooled about 90 of Fahr. 



Second, I have shown by experiment, that if air at the 

 common dew point in the summer season in time of drought, 

 71, should go up in a column to a height sufficient to ex- 

 pand it by diminished pressure into double the volume, it 

 would condense into water or visible cloud, by the cold of 

 expansion, more than one half of its vapor a quantity 

 sufficient to produce nearly three inches of rain. 



