It wasnt until the late 19th century, that efforts at weather modification became more persuasive.
Edward Powers, a former Civil War general, proposed a less destructive approach to inducing rain.
However, neither Powers nor Lewis were the first to associate loud sounds with rainfall.
Powers explained that most of the rainfall over North America originates from the evaporation of the Pacific Ocean.
When these opposing air masses interact, the moisture in the warm current condenses and falls as rain.
To support his claim, he documented numerous historical battles where rainfall was observed shortly after the fighting ended.
However, Congress showed little interest in the idea.
It took twenty years before Farewell successfully secured a $9,000 congressional appropriation for rainmaking experiments.
At C Ranch, Dyrenforth built 60 homemade mortars, positioning them skyward at 45-degree angles.
Lacking enough personnel to fly them, Dyrenforth tied the kites to bushes, staggering them between the mortars.
Dyrenforths party with inflated hydrogen balloons in Midland, Texas.
The first trial took place in the evening of August 9.
Dyrenforth estimated that about an inch of rain fell.
Smaller firings were conducted throughout August, producing little to no rain, though Dyrenforth noted frequent overcast skies.
The team set off a series of explosions in the evening, finishing around eleven o’clock.
Early the next morning, torrential rain began to fall as if the sky had suddenly opened up.
Dyrenforth dispatched a promising report to Congress, but many officials from the Weather Bureau and meteorologists were sceptical.
Nevertheless, many, including Dyrenforth, continued to hold the belief that concussion experiments might still prove effective.
Weather engineers and onlookers in El Paso watching the inflation of a balloon.
Image credit: Harpers Weekly
On September 18, the skies over El Paso reverberated with artillery fire.
In San Diego, the weather was already stormy when Ellis decided to fire upon the skies.
Surprisingly, the concussion theory of rainmaking did not die with Dyrenforths unfruitful attempts.
Over several hours, he detonated four-pound dynamite charges every four minutes.
This theory laid the foundation for what would later become known as cloud seeding.
Unfortunately, Blake lacked the funding to test his idea.
Just four months later, Schaefer successfully caused snow to fall near Mount Greylock in western Massachusetts.
