FEBRUARY 22, 1584. ] 
September, snow-hurricanes may destroy rash travel- 
lers. Though English authorities had informed them 
that rain was impossible on this plateau, the party 
were drenched. Marmots and bears alone inhabit 
this solitude. Grass is rare, and, at one place where 
abundant, is said to be poisonous for animals. These 
regions offer a desolate grandeur, unsoftened by vege- 
tation. 
The descent to Baltistan and the sources of the 
Indus was through scenery equally wild and melan- 
choly, so that the first signs of cultivation met the 
eye as grateful relief. 
The Baltis are Mussulmans, and chiefly remarkable 
for their devotion to the game of polo; which, in fact, 
originated here, and for which their well-trained, 
tough little mountain ponies are admirably adapted. 
Their capital is Skardo; but the purest type of the 
race is found in the Shigar valley, which contains the 
largest glaciers in the world after those of Greenland, 
and the highest mountains in the world after Mount 
Everest. The glaciers form an unbroken line for 
nearly a hundred miles. Mount Dapsang of the Ka- 
rakorum range is only some two hundred feet lower 
than Mount Everest. But even here the Shigar 
River waters an attractive oasis of some six miles in 
extent, with fields of millet and beans, and orchards 
weighed down with fruit, among which nestle tombs, 
mosques, and picturesque though uncomfortable 
habitations. The apricots and melons of this region 
are delicious. 
The party returned by another and very difficult 
route, which followed all the windings of the Indus; 
yet here and there little villages were set, like verdant 
nests, among therocks. Inspite of the incessant con- 
flict with nature, which a residence here entails, the 
people are devoted to their country, and prefer it to 
any other. 
The journey to Shigar was due to the munificence 
of the Maharajah Rambir Singh of Kashmir; and its 
scientific results, which remain to be published, are 
believed to be important. 
THE ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTION OF 
RAIN. 
In his anniversary address delivered to the Royal 
society of New South Wales, Mr. H. C. Russell, the 
president and government astronomer, deals at some 
length with the subject of producing rain artificially. — 
He begins with a few points in its history, telling 
first how Arago, finding the practice of firing guns 
common in some of the departments of France, had 
tried to trace the origin of the custom, which proba- 
bly began in 1769. A retired naval officer, who at sea 
had seen water-spouts destroyed by cannon shofs, 
made his home in a district that suffered from vio- 
lent rain and hail storms, and determined to try the 
power of shot and shell upon these new foes; and, 
setting up his battery, his success was such that the 
district was protected from the violent storms. The 
practice became popular in France; and up to the 
year 1806, and even later, many communes kept a 
SCIENCE. 
229 
battery of small guns for this purpose, the commune 
of Fleury even going so far as to get a cannon which 
used a pound of powder at each discharge. Arago 
could not trace what the effect had been, but he at 
least was not convinced that it had had any good 
effect; and after a time the practice became obsolete. 
Volta’s biographer says that ‘‘it is well known that 
Volta thought a possible advantage might be found 
in having large fires during thunder-storms;”’’ his 
reason probably being, that the smoke would serve 
as a conductor for the electricity, and so prevent 
dangerous discharges. 
To test the effect of the discharge of artillery on 
the weather, Arago examined the weather-record of 
the Paris observatory for many years, especially 
for the days adjacent to those on which the regular 
gun-practice took place in the fort, situate somewhat 
less than two miles from the observatory. The firing 
took place at this fort on certain days in the week, 
from seven to ten A.M., about one hundred and fifty 
shots being fired. Arago found, that, out of 662 days 
preceding the practice, 128 were cloudy; out of 662 
days of practice, 158 were cloudy; out of 662 days 
following practice, 146 were cloudy; which he re- 
garded as proof that the discharge of heavy artillery 
does not seem to have the effect of dissipating the 
clouds. 
Struck at one time by the amount of destruction 
caused by hail-storms, Arago proposed drawing off 
the electricity by means of wires carried up to great 
elevations by captive balloons; but, when he came to 
the practical consideration of the scheme, it was soon 
seen that each balloon would not protect more than, 
perhaps, a thousand square yards, —a mere speck of 
France. In later years he was led to doubt the value 
of such a means of protection. 
Arago relates, that, in tracing the history of the 
use of cannons, he found that bells, and especially 
church-bells, had preceded them; and it was at one 
time firmly believed that the vigorous ringing of 
church-bells was sufficient to dissipate dangerous 
storms. Mr. Russell finds that up to 1810, or later, 
the idea was popularly prevalent that storms might 
be destroyed or prevented by fire or guns; and he 
thinks that a complete change to the opposite opin- 
ion has taken place since then. He says, — 
‘* Australia, like Africa, wants the rain-doctor to make rain, ‘not 
drive it away. It is not only in Australia, however, that the be- 
lief in the artificial production of rain exists. In America, dur- 
ing the civil war, it was a matter of common observation that 
rain followed the great battles; and the belief in this became so 
general, that farmers began the practice of making large heaps of 
brushwood on each farm, and, when they wanted rain, lighting 
them all together. I cannot find any reference to the results of 
this system in the Smithsonian publications, in which almost 
every subject of this kind is dwelt upon; but the practice seems 
to have been given up.” 
Mr. Russell then alludes to the well-known little 
volume by Mr. Edward Powers, published in 1870, 
and entitled ‘War and the weather, or the artificial 
production of rain;’ and to the review of this book 
in Silliman’s journal, inclining to the opinion that 
great battles do exert some influence in the produc- 
tion of rain, but failing to accept Mr. Powers’s incom- 
