Rain Making. Various attempts have been made in sections of many countries subject to long periods of drought to produce artificial rain, or more properly to force the fall of rain out of its due season. The great majority of experiments have been conducted on the theory of concussion from explosions. In 1891, the Congress of the United States made an appropriation for a series of experiments in Texas, with the view of ascertaining whether means could be provided for relieving the arid territory of the Western and Southwestern States. The experiments were conducted by General Dryenforth for the Department of Agriculture, and were watched with much interest by both scientists and agriculturists. Scientists generally pronounced the experiment a failure.
Entry from Everybody's Cyclopedia,
1912.