Page 97 - James Rodger Fleming - Fixing the sky

erected long poles in the fields to do the trick. The poles were not anticipations
of Benjamin Franklin’s lightning rods, but were festooned with pieces of paper
covered with magic inscriptions to protect against storms, a practice that the
emperor Charlemagne regarded as superstitious. In the farm communities of cen-
tral Europe, it was traditional to ignite gigantic heaps of straw and brushwood in
advance of an approaching storm. The main effect of this was likely not meteo-
rological, but it did foster a sense of shared risk and community engagement. of
course, the burning pyres contributed to the awesome spectacle of flashing light-
ning and pealing thunder.
In more recent times, according to Arago, nautical men generally believed
that the noise of artillery dissipated thunderstorms and that waterspouts could
be disrupted by the firing of cannon (figure 3.2). He mentioned the case of the
Comte d’Estrées, who in 1680 fired on storms off the coast of South America and
dissipated them, reportedly to the amazement of the Spanish witnesses. In 1711,
however, a furious French naval bombardment in the harbor of Rio de Janeiro
was followed by a tremendous thunderstorm (216).

3.2 Naval vessel firing its guns at a triple waterspout. (espy, the philosophy
of storms)

80 | rain fakerS