=Artificial Rain Making.= Many swindlers have preyed upon the credulity of the public by claiming to have a process for the making of rain, and in some cases large sums of money have been paid by commercial or other associations to these charlatans. In 1892 the United States Congress appropriated $20,000 for the testing of the theory that rain could be created by the setting off of large quantities of explosives. The experiment was unsuccessful, as the scientists of the Government insisted it would be. The Greeks had a popular belief that when a host of their soldiers went out to meet an army of Persians the vapor rising from the hot breath, blood, and sweat of the struggling mass was later condensed into rain by the concussion of the battle clubs and the hoarse cries of the victors, and many of the veterans of our Civil War were firm in the opinion that their great battles were followed by rains that were the result of the cannonading. Both the Greeks and our American soldiers were mistaken. Rain often has fallen at the close of great battles, not because of the concussion of the conflict, but because rain falls on an average of one day in three in the regions where most of the great battles have been fought, and the movement of armies began on the fair days when travel was good. If it were the custom to begin battles on rainy days we would have the contrary and equally erroneous theory that concussion clears the atmosphere. =Prevention of Hail by the Firing of Guns.= Even a Papal decree was not entirely effective in preventing the people in southern Europe from ringing the church bells to prevent the formation of hail when a storm threatened, and within the past quarter-century large grants of public money were foolishly wasted in the firing by the vineyardists of France and other parts of Europe of a gun specially designed to destroy hail clouds. These guns sent harmless smoke rings a few feet aloft. The writer felt constrained to employ the extensive machinery of the Weather Bureau to counteract the effect of glowing accounts of the success of these guns that were sent to this country by some of the ignorant persons employed by this Government to represent us as consuls abroad. Even though the hail-destroying guns occasionally were choked with hail it was difficult for scientists to prevail upon the public to stop their foolish and wasteful practice. CHAPTER XVI DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMERICAN WEATHER SERVICE THE LARGEST AND THE MOST EFFECTIVE METEOROLOGICAL BUREAU IN THE WORLD