The Message of Science 83 



weather. It is a question of the electrical distribution 

 and regulation of the solar heat which falls on the earth's 

 surface, and the direction of the " trade " or retro-rotary 

 winds due to rarefaction and the earth's axial motion. 



The electrical distribution of the earth's share of the 

 sun's radiation will make it possible, not only to regulate 

 the rainfall, but gage vaporization from the ocean and 

 lakes. Droughts and freshets, tornadoes and frosts, might 

 soon become disasters of a past age, if the resources of 

 control which are already coming within our grasp can be 

 applied. What is expended in national preparation for 

 war, in a single year, would suffice to initiate the prelimi- 

 nary plants and stations for experimentation in heat 

 distribution. 



Climate is as much a terrestrial condition to be con- 

 trolled as a city's water-supply. A bad climate will be 

 quite unnecessary in the year 2000. The problem of 

 irrigation is properly one of a regulated rainfall rather 

 than of dams, canals, or artesian wells. Vaporization and 

 rainfall are the factors to be controlled. An equable dis- 

 tribution of solar heat and a regulated electrical tension 

 are the agencies to be used to this end. The whole 

 problem of climate-control is already outlined in physics, as 

 to its methods. We need but the wasted war appropria- 

 tions and the labor of idle soldiers to put it in operation. 



Such a half century of rational cooperation would see 

 even more revolutionary advances in our methods of 



