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Ordinary Meeting, December 10th, 1861. 
J. P. Joule, LL.D., President, in the Chair. 
Mr. Win, K. Deane, was elected an Ordinary Member. 
Mr. Baxendell made the following communication : — 
A paragraph, headed “ Rain following the Discharge of 
Ordnance,” appears in the number of the London Review for 
November 16th, 1861. In this paragraph some new facts, 
drawn from the American war, are adduced by Mr. J. C. 
Lewis, in support of the view that a violent concussion of the 
air by the discharge of heavy artillery has a tendency to 
cause a copious precipitation of rain. Now, if we may be 
allowed to regard this effect as an established fact, it seems 
to me to be one of some interest in connection with the 
disputed question whether, in thunderstorms, a discharge of 
lightning is the cause or the consequence of the sudden 
formation of a heavy shower of rain. Almost every day’s 
experience, in this climate at least, shows that the production 
of rain is not dependent upon sudden discharges of electricity 
from the clouds; and no evidence has ever been brought 
forward to prove that a high degree of electrical tension in a 
cloud has a tendency to prevent the resolution of the cloud 
into rain. Heavy showers often fall from highly electrified 
clouds without any visible discharge of electricity taking- 
place. We are, therefore, not entitled to assume that the 
sudden diminution of the electrical tension of a cloud by a 
lightning discharge can have any material influence upon the 
rain-forming processes going on in the cloud. As, however, 
very heavy showers of rain do almost invariably follow light- 
ning discharges, it seems necessary to seek some other cause 
to account for them. But if we admit that a violent con- 
Proceedings — Lit. & Phil. Society— No. 6.— Session 1861-62. 
