The American Architect and Building News, Vol. XXXIII.
Copyright, 1891, by Ticknor & Company, Boston, Mass.
No. 822
Entered at the Post-Office at Boston as second-class matter.
SEPTEMBER 26, 1891.
Summary:—
The Experiments on Rain Production.— Rain-making by Willpower.— A Wonderful New Electrical Machine. — The Cost of Supporting the Fine Arts in France. — Details of Appropriations.— Utilizing the Force of Surf. — The Progress of the Cold-Air-Supply System. — Photographic Speech. —
Insurance against Damage by Water...........................................189 German Architecture. — VIII. ........................................................191 Ancient Architecture for Students. — XIII.................................194 Five Famous Domes.— II........................................................................197 Bebenhausen..............................................................................................199 The South Kensington Competition..................................................200 Pietro Rosa, Architect...........................................................................................200 The Rejected Statue................................................................................................201 Illustrations:—
House of George0. Shattuck, Esq., Beacon St., Boston, Mass. — The Chamber of Commerce, Portland, Oregon. — Tower of the Same —Main Entrance of the Same. — House at Staten Island, N. Y. — Public Library, New London, Conn.
Additional: Ironwork from Palaces in Sienna, Italy.—Accepted Design for the Completion of the South Kensington Museum : Mr. Aston Webb, Architect.— Competitive Design for the Same : Mr. William Young, Architect. — Spires and Towers of some of Sir Christopher Wren’s Churches in London. — Exeter Cathedral.—Plan of Same —Pair of Houses, Burnt Ash Hill, Lee, Eng. — The Fountain of Amboise, Clermont-Ferrand, France. —St. Thomas’s Church Hall, West Ham, Eng. — Rome.—Florence.— Baths and Library, Dewsbury, Eng.—Artist’s House, Kensington, Eng. — New Front to North Transept, Westminster
Abbey................................................................................................202
Communication : —
The Prohibition of the Importation of Photographs by Mail. 204 Motes and Clippings...............................................................................204 Trade Surveys..........................................................................................204
A GOOD deal of interest has been excited by the experiments
now in progress to determine the possibility of producing rain by artificial means, and, as usually happens, the idea seems to have been taken up by schemers, who hope to turn a penny through devices, purporting to he related to the proceedings of the scientific men, hut presenting much more startling features. So far as we can learn, the Government has two parties of experimenters in the field, one being led by Senator Farwell, of Illinois, who succeeded in getting a small appropriation from Congress last year for this special purpose, and is likely to add more out of his own pocket if the undertaking, in which he has a great interest, shows signs of success ; while the other is sent out by the Department of Agriculture, and is directed by General Dyrenfurth. The latter expedition appears to have been the first to commence operations, and certainly seems to have obtained some remarkable results in Texas, where its first experiments were made. It has been the fashion in the daily papers to ridicule the accounts of the experiments, and to try to prove that the means employed could not possibly have produced the recorded eifects, but there is no doubt that if nature, and not General Dyrenfurth’s bombs, brought the showers just at the time predicted, a succession of singular coincidences must have occurred. General Dyrenfurth is very far from being the burlesque mountebank that some of the newspapers make him out to he. He was educated in the German Artillery School at Berlin, where the chemistry and physics of explosions and explosives are taught perhaps more thoroughly than anywhere else in the world ; and he was employed by a department which spends no time in preparing comic entertainments for newspaper readers or reporters, to ascertain, to the best of his ability, a single fact, — whether rain can he produced by artificial concussions of the atmosphere, and, if so, in what way ? There has been for a hundred years a common belief that the firing of cannon is generally followed by rain, and the task of finding out whether this belief is wellfounded is not one in which a trained man of science would be likely to deceive himself or others.
IT is certain that the explosions of General Dyrenfurth’s batteries were, in most, if not all cases, followed by rain, and that in a region where natural rain is very rare at the season when the experiments were made. It is true that this may
have been an exceptional year, and that the rains might have occurred when they did without any help from the batteries ; but scientific inductions are rarely anything better than probable inferences, and as General Dyrenfurth, in nearly every case, fired the batteries when the barometer was rising, it seems quite as likely that the concussions had something to do with the rain as that the showers should always have occurred, by pure chance, under a rising barometer, and just after the artificial concussions. Of course, further experiments, which are to be made in a region almost totally rainless, just east of the Rocky Mountains, may confirm or oppose the previous results, but each experiment teaches us something, and the combined results of a large number of trials will teach us a great deal. Meanwhile, a curious variation of the Government rain-making process is said to be practised by a private individual in the West. This person, according to the newspaper accounts, employs no explosives, or other material appliances, to draw down rain, but seems to depend upon the power of his eagle eye, or some other subjective force, employed in a manner which no one can describe, for the reason that no one is allowed to witness the incantation. The rain-compeller, we are told, has a sort of wooden tent, which he sets up in a field. The tent has a hole in the top, and its proprietor gets in, and shuts the door. The multitude which usually surrounds the tent imagines that the wizard is eyeing the heavens through the hole, but this is not proved, as there are no witnesses. However, in course of time the magician emerges, “ exhausted, and bathed in perspiration,” and announces that at a certain hour rain will fall, which, we are told, comes to pass. It is said that the inhabitants of the country in which this comedy is played are quite disposed to believe in the power of the performer over the clouds, and that an offer has already been made him of five hundred dollars for a good rain-storm of not less than fifty miles diameter. It will be acknowledged that the production of rain by firing guns must be at least as easy as by looking at the sky through a hole, so that General Dyrenfurth is likely to find the minds of the people among whom his rival has, sojourned quite prepared to receive his conclusions. Without believing that the rain-wizard can have as much power of producing rain as General Dyrenfurth, it is not impossible that his tent gives him a good opportunity for examining the sky carefully, and that skill in interpreting its indications, cleverly used, has been the means of securing him the reputation of being possessed of marvellous power. Every one who has practised landscape painting from nature, in oil, must have noticed that the bluest and clearest sky is never of uniform transparency, or even constant in its appearance for any considerable length of time. On the contrary, attentive observation will always show very faint mottlings, markings, or other variations, and the coalescing, increase or diminution of the markings might give important indications of the state of the atmosphere. That the raincompeller shuts himself up in a box, with only a hole in the top, makes it more likely that he uses some such means of gaining information, as the variations in the sky overhead would be made more visible by shutting out light from the side. The accounts, moreover, do not say that he, like General Dyrenfurth, produced rain at will, but only that, after getting into a perspiration, he opened the door of his box, and said that it would rain within so many hours. A prediction of this sort is quite compatible, perspiration and all, with the idea that the wizard only noticed that a natural rain was approaching, and the spectators seem to have concluded that he could produce the rain at will by an inference of their own.
A STORY comes from London which has a suspicious look, but, if any of our readers wish to experiment for themselves, they are at liberty to make such corrections as may be necessary in the account. It is asserted that a new kind of electrical machine has been constructed, which will produce a quantity of electricity, with a given power, hitherto quite unheard of. The machine consists of a hollow zinc sphere twenty inches in diameter. Inside this is one of solid copper, sixteen inches in diameter. The globes are concentric, and are arranged to revolve. To put the machine in operation, steam, at a pressure of ninety pounds to the square inch, is introduced into the space between the globes, and these are then revolved, in opposite directions, at the rate of five hundred revolutions a minute, About one-half a horse-power is required to rotate the
Copyright, 1891, by Ticknor & Company, Boston, Mass.
No. 822
Entered at the Post-Office at Boston as second-class matter.
SEPTEMBER 26, 1891.
Summary:—
The Experiments on Rain Production.— Rain-making by Willpower.— A Wonderful New Electrical Machine. — The Cost of Supporting the Fine Arts in France. — Details of Appropriations.— Utilizing the Force of Surf. — The Progress of the Cold-Air-Supply System. — Photographic Speech. —
Insurance against Damage by Water...........................................189 German Architecture. — VIII. ........................................................191 Ancient Architecture for Students. — XIII.................................194 Five Famous Domes.— II........................................................................197 Bebenhausen..............................................................................................199 The South Kensington Competition..................................................200 Pietro Rosa, Architect...........................................................................................200 The Rejected Statue................................................................................................201 Illustrations:—
House of George0. Shattuck, Esq., Beacon St., Boston, Mass. — The Chamber of Commerce, Portland, Oregon. — Tower of the Same —Main Entrance of the Same. — House at Staten Island, N. Y. — Public Library, New London, Conn.
Additional: Ironwork from Palaces in Sienna, Italy.—Accepted Design for the Completion of the South Kensington Museum : Mr. Aston Webb, Architect.— Competitive Design for the Same : Mr. William Young, Architect. — Spires and Towers of some of Sir Christopher Wren’s Churches in London. — Exeter Cathedral.—Plan of Same —Pair of Houses, Burnt Ash Hill, Lee, Eng. — The Fountain of Amboise, Clermont-Ferrand, France. —St. Thomas’s Church Hall, West Ham, Eng. — Rome.—Florence.— Baths and Library, Dewsbury, Eng.—Artist’s House, Kensington, Eng. — New Front to North Transept, Westminster
Abbey................................................................................................202
Communication : —
The Prohibition of the Importation of Photographs by Mail. 204 Motes and Clippings...............................................................................204 Trade Surveys..........................................................................................204
A GOOD deal of interest has been excited by the experiments
now in progress to determine the possibility of producing rain by artificial means, and, as usually happens, the idea seems to have been taken up by schemers, who hope to turn a penny through devices, purporting to he related to the proceedings of the scientific men, hut presenting much more startling features. So far as we can learn, the Government has two parties of experimenters in the field, one being led by Senator Farwell, of Illinois, who succeeded in getting a small appropriation from Congress last year for this special purpose, and is likely to add more out of his own pocket if the undertaking, in which he has a great interest, shows signs of success ; while the other is sent out by the Department of Agriculture, and is directed by General Dyrenfurth. The latter expedition appears to have been the first to commence operations, and certainly seems to have obtained some remarkable results in Texas, where its first experiments were made. It has been the fashion in the daily papers to ridicule the accounts of the experiments, and to try to prove that the means employed could not possibly have produced the recorded eifects, but there is no doubt that if nature, and not General Dyrenfurth’s bombs, brought the showers just at the time predicted, a succession of singular coincidences must have occurred. General Dyrenfurth is very far from being the burlesque mountebank that some of the newspapers make him out to he. He was educated in the German Artillery School at Berlin, where the chemistry and physics of explosions and explosives are taught perhaps more thoroughly than anywhere else in the world ; and he was employed by a department which spends no time in preparing comic entertainments for newspaper readers or reporters, to ascertain, to the best of his ability, a single fact, — whether rain can he produced by artificial concussions of the atmosphere, and, if so, in what way ? There has been for a hundred years a common belief that the firing of cannon is generally followed by rain, and the task of finding out whether this belief is wellfounded is not one in which a trained man of science would be likely to deceive himself or others.
IT is certain that the explosions of General Dyrenfurth’s batteries were, in most, if not all cases, followed by rain, and that in a region where natural rain is very rare at the season when the experiments were made. It is true that this may
have been an exceptional year, and that the rains might have occurred when they did without any help from the batteries ; but scientific inductions are rarely anything better than probable inferences, and as General Dyrenfurth, in nearly every case, fired the batteries when the barometer was rising, it seems quite as likely that the concussions had something to do with the rain as that the showers should always have occurred, by pure chance, under a rising barometer, and just after the artificial concussions. Of course, further experiments, which are to be made in a region almost totally rainless, just east of the Rocky Mountains, may confirm or oppose the previous results, but each experiment teaches us something, and the combined results of a large number of trials will teach us a great deal. Meanwhile, a curious variation of the Government rain-making process is said to be practised by a private individual in the West. This person, according to the newspaper accounts, employs no explosives, or other material appliances, to draw down rain, but seems to depend upon the power of his eagle eye, or some other subjective force, employed in a manner which no one can describe, for the reason that no one is allowed to witness the incantation. The rain-compeller, we are told, has a sort of wooden tent, which he sets up in a field. The tent has a hole in the top, and its proprietor gets in, and shuts the door. The multitude which usually surrounds the tent imagines that the wizard is eyeing the heavens through the hole, but this is not proved, as there are no witnesses. However, in course of time the magician emerges, “ exhausted, and bathed in perspiration,” and announces that at a certain hour rain will fall, which, we are told, comes to pass. It is said that the inhabitants of the country in which this comedy is played are quite disposed to believe in the power of the performer over the clouds, and that an offer has already been made him of five hundred dollars for a good rain-storm of not less than fifty miles diameter. It will be acknowledged that the production of rain by firing guns must be at least as easy as by looking at the sky through a hole, so that General Dyrenfurth is likely to find the minds of the people among whom his rival has, sojourned quite prepared to receive his conclusions. Without believing that the rain-wizard can have as much power of producing rain as General Dyrenfurth, it is not impossible that his tent gives him a good opportunity for examining the sky carefully, and that skill in interpreting its indications, cleverly used, has been the means of securing him the reputation of being possessed of marvellous power. Every one who has practised landscape painting from nature, in oil, must have noticed that the bluest and clearest sky is never of uniform transparency, or even constant in its appearance for any considerable length of time. On the contrary, attentive observation will always show very faint mottlings, markings, or other variations, and the coalescing, increase or diminution of the markings might give important indications of the state of the atmosphere. That the raincompeller shuts himself up in a box, with only a hole in the top, makes it more likely that he uses some such means of gaining information, as the variations in the sky overhead would be made more visible by shutting out light from the side. The accounts, moreover, do not say that he, like General Dyrenfurth, produced rain at will, but only that, after getting into a perspiration, he opened the door of his box, and said that it would rain within so many hours. A prediction of this sort is quite compatible, perspiration and all, with the idea that the wizard only noticed that a natural rain was approaching, and the spectators seem to have concluded that he could produce the rain at will by an inference of their own.
A STORY comes from London which has a suspicious look, but, if any of our readers wish to experiment for themselves, they are at liberty to make such corrections as may be necessary in the account. It is asserted that a new kind of electrical machine has been constructed, which will produce a quantity of electricity, with a given power, hitherto quite unheard of. The machine consists of a hollow zinc sphere twenty inches in diameter. Inside this is one of solid copper, sixteen inches in diameter. The globes are concentric, and are arranged to revolve. To put the machine in operation, steam, at a pressure of ninety pounds to the square inch, is introduced into the space between the globes, and these are then revolved, in opposite directions, at the rate of five hundred revolutions a minute, About one-half a horse-power is required to rotate the