Page 130 - James Rodger Fleming - Fixing the sky

Wilder Bancroft, grandson of the famous historian and statesman George
Bancroft, was expected to do great things. He studied physical chemistry with
Wilhelm ostwald in Leipzig and J. H. van’t Hoff in Amsterdam before joining
the faculty of Cornell University in 1895. Bancroft was seemingly more adept at
writing than at chemistry. He attracted students with his genteel style and wit
more than with his laboratory technique, while he dedicated his considerable
writing skills to the new Journal of Physical Chemistry, which he edited for thirty-
seven years. During the Great War, Bancroft served in the Chemical Warfare
Service and wrote its history; after the war, he chaired the Division of Chemis-
try of the National Research Council. Back at Cornell, Bancroft worked on col-
loid chemistry, the chemical physics of finely divided matter in suspension—for
example, in such complex fluids as ink, wine, milk, smoke, and fog. Thinking
about fog, specifically fog dissipation, brought Bancroft into the controversial
field of weather control. If, in laboratory tests, electric fields precipitated smoke
and fog, why would they not do so in nature?
At the time, Bancroft was under fire from critics for his lack of clarity in
organic chemistry and for having missed most of the new physical implications
of quantum mechanics. He was busy trying to keep his struggling journal afloat,
more by diplomacy and fund-raising than by the influx of new ideas. The mar-
keting of ideas was important to Bancroft. He once opined, “Since the greatest
discoveries are likely to be ones for which the world is least ready . . . the greatest
scientific men should really be super-salesmen.” on weather control, however, he
chose to stand on the sidelines as an investor and cheerleader and allowed his
associate Warren to take the point position as advocate and business “rainmaker,”
if not super-salesman. As the airplane was opening up a new era in weather con-
trol, Bancroft wrote to Warren in 1920, “[i]t would probably be absolutely pro-
hibitive in cost to produce rain by spraying clouds from beneath; but it is quite
possible that you can get satisfactory results by spraying from above.” 8
To get his ideas off the ground, Warren lobbied in Washington, D.C., lunch-
ing and dining on Bancroft’s dime, with “leading men of the air force.” Initially,
the military offered merely to take electrical measurements at its flying fields.
General Electric was interested in providing the electrical equipment. Major
William Blair, who had led the meteorological efforts of the U.S. Army Signal
Corps during the war, offered the use of an airplane. The lobbying possibilities
were endless. Warren wrote to Bancroft that he had to move quickly, or “I shall
be forced to go through the entertainment and visit stunts with a ‘new bunch of
guys’, but as I like them all, and have a soft spot in my make-up for all mankind, I
do not apprehend serious trouble, but only inconvenience, as there will be days
here when I can do little more than spend denario [mainly Bancroft’s] and kick

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