TEE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA 



homes dawned slowly npon the public mind, and the con- 

 clusion was stubbornly resisted. 



Between the acknowledgment of this fact and the be- 

 ginning of practical efforts looking to the use of irri- 

 gation, there was a brief but exciting intermediate stage 

 in which high hopes were built upon the possibility of 

 precipitating rain by artificial means. An Australian 

 genius suddenly appeared with a mysterious prescription 

 warranted to assemble clouds in a clear sky and compel 

 them to weep in the shape of copious showers. The end 

 of this undertaking was the failure of the experiment 

 and the suicide of the inventor. One of the railways dis- 

 covered another wizard with another prescription, and 

 hauled his special car over the entire length of its line, 

 promising showers on regular schedule time* Even the 

 Agricultural Department at Washington expended several 

 thousand dollars in experiments in this direction. In 

 this case, however, there was no mystery about the method 

 adopted. It was the use of powerful explosives to be 

 discharged at a high elevation. As nobody denied that 

 heavy showers frequently followed great battles, and that 

 it generally rained on the night of the Fourth of July, 

 there were high hopes for the success of this undertaking, 

 which occurred on an elaborate scale in Texas. Secre- 

 tary Rusk described the preparations in detail, and sum- 

 marized the outcome in the sententious remark: "The 

 result was a loud noise!" The theory exploded with 

 the dynamite and disappeared from the minds of men 

 with the last reverberation on the Texas prairies. 



The mysterious line which divides the region of fairly 

 reliable rainfall from the land of sunshine has been dis- 

 covered at last and generally accepted. This, as stated 



108 



