us Star an& TOeatber (gossip 



persons among agriculturists. The ineffectiveness of 

 rockets and bombs, as demonstrated by the Italian 

 experiments, entitled them to say : ' Hereby the end 

 of weather-shooting is sealed.' The Austrian meteor- 

 ologist added : 4 No doubt the future will yet seek 

 salvation in weather-shooting in spite of all and 

 everything ; but science is entitled to leave them to 

 their imaginings.' ' 



m 



On the general question of concussion and rain, Dr. 

 Shaw said : " The notion that concussion might 

 affect rainfall goes back at least to the Middle Ages, 

 when the ringing of church bells was thought to be 

 effective. Upon the introduction of firearms these 

 were brought in as an aid to controlling the weather, 

 sometimes with the addition of pellets made of the 

 remains of candles preserved from the celebration of 

 Candlemas. As new methods of producing con- 

 cussion are developed, the older ones are disregarded. 

 The power of the church bell is now transferred to 

 heavy ordnance. So far as experience goes, then, it 

 can only be said that there is no evidence either of a 

 practical or theoretical nature that heavy ordnance 

 is more effective than a church bell, or that either has 

 the smallest effect upon clouds or rainfall. 



" We can easily detect the effect of the smoke of 

 London and other great cities in intercepting a good 

 deal of sunshine, but we cannot say that even that 

 affects the amount of rainfall. Our incredulity as 

 regards the influence of causation does not arise from 

 unwillingness to consider evidence. It is singular to 

 observe how some southern countries are periodically 



