14. A Cockamamie Gilded Age Attempt to Make it Rain
Edward Powers and his “Concussion Theory” were scoffed at by reputable scholars and scientists. Two decades later, however, Senator Charles B. Farwell of Illinois read General Powers’ book, and decided to test his pseudo-science. So he got Congress to appropriate $10,000 – a sizeable amount at the time – to make the tests. No legit scholars or scientists wanted to risk their reputations by associating with something so wacky. So a patent lawyer named Robert G. Dyrenforth was assigned the task of carrying out the experiment.
In August, 1891, Dyrenforth set up shop in the Texas prairie, and put on an impressive pyrotechnic display. His men blasted clouds with mortars and with dynamite carried aloft by kites, trailed by balloons filled with flammable hydrogen. To add to the noise and take it up to the extreme, Dyrenforth’s men packed prairie dog holes full of dynamite, and blew them up as well to increase the decibel levels. Unsurprisingly, the plan did not work. Undaunted by failure, Dyrenforth falsely claimed that he had succeeded. His fabrications were exposed when a meteorologist, who had observed the experiment, published a scathing report about it in Nature.
