Page 87 - James Rodger Fleming - Fixing the sky

According to long-term climatological records, West Texas was well watered
in 1891, with rainfall up to an inch more than average. or could it be that the
amount was enhanced and the statistics skewed by the Dyrenforth team’s pur-
ported successes? Lieutenant S. Allen Dyer, second in command of the expe-
dition, concluded from his experiences that “rain can be produced by artificial
means . . . and ‘rainmaking’ will prove a practicable and most valuable success
when the conditions are favorable for rain” (41). Eugene Fairchild, an expedition
member, testified: “I am convinced that the experiments have been entirely suc-
cessful, and furthermore that the scheme is practicable” (53). But how practical
is it to have more than twenty artillerists staying in a town at a cost of more than
$1,500 just for materials? Nevertheless, some prominent citizens of San Diego
said they were “astonished” at the results and were sure that the rain was a direct
result of the experiment. Judge James o. Luby sent Dyrenforth his congratula-
tions: “What was my surprise, after retiring for the night, to hear the patter [of
rain] on the shingles; I then knew that, in the language of the festive cowboy, you
had ‘got a cinch on old Pluvius,’ and that the ‘Powers’ that be, go there with the
limpid aqua pura” (55).
Nevertheless, Dyrenforth, who had spent $17,000 for the three experiments
($9,000 from the government and $8,000 from local sources and assistance in
kind), sounded a note of uncertainty in his official report: “The few experiments
which have been made, do not furnish sufficient data from which to form defi-
nite conclusions, or evidence upon which to uphold or condemn the theories of
the artificial production or increase of rainfall by concussion” (57). Still, he ven-
tured the following three positive “inferences”:

First, that when a moist cloud is present, which if undisturbed, would pass away
without precipitating its moisture, the jarring of the cloud by concussions will cause
the particles of moisture in suspension to agglomerate and fall in greater or less
quantity, according to the degree of moistness of the air in and beneath the cloud.
Second, that by taking advantage of those periods which frequently occur in
droughts, and in most if not in all sections of the U.S. where precipitation is insuffi-
cient for vegetation, and during which atmospheric conditions favor rainfall, with-
out there being actual rain, precipitation may be caused by concussion.
Third, that under the most unfavorable conditions for precipitation . . . storm
conditions may be generated and rain be induced, there being, however, a wasteful
expenditure of both time and material in overcoming unfavorable conditions. (58)

To paraphrase all this, if you go to a dry area during a typically rainy season and
conduct entertaining and impressive demonstrations but do not take any careful

70 | rain makerS