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Show SHOOTING SKIES FOR RAIN Uncle Sam Has Lost Faith In Rain-Making Rain-Making Schemes, but Italians Are Still Sanguine. Washington. Recently when fire was sweeping over the mountains ol the west, leaving death and destruction destruc-tion In Its wake, the despairing people peo-ple appealed to the war department tc bombard the skies and bring a much-needed much-needed rain. For obvious reasons their request was refused. Uncle Sam, a few years ago, spent large sums ot money experimenting along this line, sending up bombs and firing cannon at the skies to produce rain by artifl- "Cloud-Shooting" Guns of Italy. cial means. It was no use, for the clouds refused to "leak" In satisfaction satisfac-tion of man's tiny tickling. Since then the government has been with- out faith in any scheme for rain-making. It is now held that the reason why rain usually followed the great battles bat-tles of history is because whenever possible the commanders moved their armies and began battles when the . weather was fair. Rain falls on ai average of one day in three, so it is no amazing matter that the clouds should spill their contents about the time one of those famous slaughters would be over with. Of course, the great men of science know that It is useless for man, with his puny implements, to undertake tc bring about those stupendous changes in nature necessary to produce the phenomenon of rain. It would be necessary to lower the temperature ot a vast area of the heavens, or saturate such a region with moisture to obtain results, and our means of accomplishment accomplish-ment are too limited. Though our government has lost faith in rain-making, however, the Italians seem to be quite confident that in one way, at least, bombarding the clouds is productive of good results. re-sults. In all the vineyards of that sunny land there may be seen curious funnel-shaped guns pointing to the sky. Hail storms form one of the chief dangers to the grape crop in that country, and the Italians believe that the firing of these guns prevents such destructive visitations by dissipating the clouds which give them birth. |