ON THE UNCERTAINTY OF CONCLUSIONS. 
13 
spirit which guided the real meteorologists as manifested in 
the efforts of the great Weather Bureaus of the world, our own 
among the first, to foretell with a good degree of certainty 
what might happen within the next twenty or thirty hours. 
But not many months ago they were again brought to a 
high pitch of meteorological excitement by the somewhat 
sudden and certainly unexpected appearance of the “ Cloud- 
compelling Jove.” He came not in the singular, but in the 
plural, and each of him brought the best and most scientific 
device for producing a rainfall whenever and wherever a 
sufficient thirst was found to exist. The history of this new 
industry cannot yet be written. It is still in its infancy. 
The fallacy of its methods has already been commented upon 
in a public journal, by a distinguished member of our own 
Society, but a few remarks upon its somewhat meteoric career 
during the past season will not be out of place in connection 
with the subject now under consideration. 
The columns of the daily press reflected the general in¬ 
terest which was felt in the matter, especially in parts of the 
country where rainfall was greatly needed. As is always 
the case under such circumstances, the strong and entirely 
natural desire that its artificial production might be accom¬ 
plished was soon converted into a belief that it had been, 
and a readiness to accept the flimsiest sort of evidence of 
relation between the means employed and the end sought. 
This confidence materialized, or better, perhaps, was taken 
advantage of in the formation of an “ Interstate Artificial 
Bain Company, Limited” (I am quoting from the daily 
papers of November 10, 1891), which, after the manner of 
its kind, was apparently organized not for the purpose of 
actually producing rain, but for the formation of other joint 
stock companies ready to purchase the secret method of 
doing it. An alleged experiment, on which a business trans¬ 
action was based, is thus described: 
“ The party arrived in the city on Sunday, November 1, 
and commenced operations on Sunday evening in a small 
outhouse on the edge of town. The conditions were ex- 
