There is no better way to conquer things than with great big explosions. The thing to be conquered in this episode? Rain (humans just love punching on with nature).
This story begins with a strange observation. After the Civil War in America, soldiers of all ranks, abilities and backgrounds often spoke of drenching drain after battles. This apparent connection rose to the level of received wisdom. In essence — many believed the powerful explosions of battle brought rain.
This idea really took off in the US in 1871 with the publication of Edward Powers’ book ‘War and Weather’, a chronicle of battles that were followed by precipitation.
This deep wisdom did not consider the fact that battles fought in temperate locales like Virginia, averaged rain every four days. And the battles seldom started in drenching rain…Whatever. Powers had an idea. And the idea had promise. Lots of consistent big booms bring rain. Welcome to the wild world of concussionism.
But so far it was just a theory, so Powers thought, “time to prove it”. He harangued politicians to pony up some cash to fund some field tests.
Luckily for Powers, it was the late 1880s and people were settling the Great Plains in vast numbers, and they were struggling with severe, ongoing droughts. Perfect opportunity! Powers was granted $9000 to test concussionism.
But who would run this scheme?
Enter our hero: General Robert. G. Dyrenforth. Broad-shouldered, capable and extravagantly optimistic, Dyrenthforth was a relentlessly self-promoting chap. He saw vast possibilities where others didn't. He asserted that man's dominion over the continent could be extended to the heavens and to the four winds. Most importantly, he subscribed to the theory that there is no problem a little gunpowder can’t fix. Basically, Dyrenforth was concussionism’s poster boy.
Over the next five months, Dyrenforth assembled a team, collected gear, and found a test site. To be really precise, his first experiments mimicked a battlefield. In detail. A lot. He set up 3 lines of boom stuff that looked like an artillery battery. There were jury-rigged mortars to lob dynamite and rackarock charges into the air, balloons to float skyward and denote with furious force: the whole nine yards! Over several weeks they blew up multiple oxyhydrogen balloons and detonated thousands of pounds of explosives.
Dyrenforth’s reports quickly claimed success - torrential rain. It was all going swimmingly. He even came up with an elaborate theory as to why the booms led to rain.
Of course, as we all know, no experiment is perfect, and Dyrenforth was not without his detractors. But he was a man on a mission, driven to prove to all and sundry that concussionism was the cure to America’s frontier farmland water woes. So, was it…?
SOURCES:
http://househistoryman.blogspot.com/2012/02/bizaare-last-will-of-rainmaker-george.html
http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.wat.023
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/23/us-stated-cloud-seeding-weather-modification
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eight-states-are-seeding-clouds-to-overcome-megadrought/
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Will 00:00
We all want to bring home the bacon to change the world to make it rain. And with the theory of concussion ism and 1000s of tonnes of explosives, Robert George Dyrenforth forth reckoned that he could. But the real story Wow, it's a little bit more complicated than that. sit back, enjoy.
Rod 00:26
America 1890s the Great Plains Oh, yeah. Where the Great Plains are
Will 00:33
the flat bits.
Rod 00:35
Yeah, they're great. And then very plain, like, it's a strip right hand. I'll give you the full Countess is one of them. Missouri. Now, both decoders though I call Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. And take us
Rod 00:53
They were all of the ones I was gonna guess you were getting to after I got it wrong is that next you're gonna go through 40 or just got confused that Kansas City and Missouri and Missouri City and Kansas something like that.
Rod 01:02
No one knows what that means. It's very confusing, but it's a strip that runs from Canada to the Gulf right down the middle of the country, okay, between the Rockies and Mississippi, so homesteaders started settling the 1870s 1880s that was you know, it's been going on for a while. But now in the 1890s calls were going out they want to daring adventurous settlers to come East. And they lured them with promises like that they being railway Lords land bearings, cash, you know, free rabbits promises all the hats. You can eat every hat you can eat or wear knee pads, hats on your knee pads, no, no doesn't need pads.
Will 01:34
Chaps. You know that that will be the promise that would get me out to the West free chaps. Get off the train station free chaps as far as the eye could spot
Rod 01:42
But one condition. You can't wear pants under them. Only have assless chaps. So basically that was pitching it as a new garden of Eden. This place is going to be the shit. So people were enticed by images basically of escape from the neverending drudgery of labour in the big cities back East.
Will 01:59
I get it
Rod 02:00
vast tracts of land so fertile
Will 02:03
factories, fertile factories. Yeah, the nice stuff. Yeah, that's basically your desk job. You've been working from home way too long in the city
Rod 02:11
Be a farmer come out west. Here, if you throw the idea of food at the ground, it will grow. Like if you think cabbage was boom, cabbage.
Will 02:19
I'm gonna say that is literally how I do my backyard gardening. I throw the idea of food at the ground. Yeah, it doesn't work. Well. No, it does. My idea of food doesn't come back.
Rod 02:28
You didn't say human food. Like there's a lot of grass out there. Okay, you've done well within try that. So they also dreamed, you know, the types of images of luxuriating in the invigorating thrill of an independent life of course, but also they could simultaneously you know, revitalise the nation spirit. So it was all very frontiers - you're gonna love this shit,
Will 02:48
The definition of frontiers. All of our ideas of frontiers come from that
Rod 02:52
actual frontiers. But you'll be amazed to hear instead of finding basically a Garden of Eden though, greeted with things like this is possibly my favourite straight up. Enormous hailstones are described by one source of the size of prairie dogs. The obvious comparison.
Will 03:08
Okay, first, is a prairie dog roughly the size of a dog.
Rod 03:12
Well, it's the size of a hailstone I've got that. I think they're more Guinea two guinea pigs nailed together
Will 03:19
big mouse. Big rat
Rod 03:20
Very big rat mouse small possum.
Will 03:21
Yes, small possum, hailstones the size of small possums. Yeah, that is big house, though. Not every storm. No, I wanted to be in their defence. All the time. I went consistent hailstones.
Rod 03:35
Put your suit of armour on. They also talk about blowtorch winds, sandstorms hard water, dry rivers. Blue North has a blue North was a fast moving cold front marked by strong winds. They're kind of a dark black or blue sky and a really rapid drop in temperatures like 10 or 15 degrees centigrade. Okay in minutes. Also tonight
Will 03:55
They wouldn't have understood that though. They wouldn't they would have gone Fahrenheit. So how can I possibly know what this weather is? If it's in Centigrade?
Rod 04:01
Well, I've grown as a person. The original source had it in Fahrenheit, and I waited for me hang on, give us both. No, I don't remember the Kelvin place to add 273 Yeah, tornadoes, and of course, drought. The promises of youth sways huge swathes of African soil and if it was harvest turned out to be bullshit. So advertising, not always true. Not always true. Every now and then listening, you can take that to the bank, not our advertising, not ours always true.
Will 04:27
I stand by every product that I do or don't sell.
Rod 04:30
Yes. You stand by ones you don't sell. I don't know about that. You're very cool. You are a broad church, on your own.
Will 04:38
I stand by all of the products. They are all products that you would have to say anything more than that.
Rod 04:43
No to stand by it like, Oh, I'll stand next to that. It's garbage, but I'll stand next to it. So basically, it was particularly droughty in eastern New Mexico and North Western Texas. Cool, this little chunk of the land. I had a picture of a map, but it didn't happen. It was a draw In cold maps, yeah, this is this is a picture of a map because I screenshot it's a picture of a map still a map. So if you imagine the map of America in front of you, middle bottom left, got it. So it was describing this area as a sprawling, bone dry expanse of beige that could go months or even years at a time with little to no precipitation,
Will 05:18
sprawling, bone dry, expansive of beige. That is great, isn't it? I do want that apply to other things as well.
Rod 05:18
I've got pants that are like that.
Will 05:18
Yeah, some people's high school experience, a sprawling, bone dry
Rod 05:20
expanses of beige. I've met people with personalities that can be described that way too.
Will 05:35
They are too. They love you anyway.
Rod 05:37
So at best the kind of rainfall we're talking at best an average of maybe 500 millimetres. I think that's about 40 inches. So Sydney comparatively gets 1200 or more, okay, here, New York City 1000 Plus, okay, so at the best, at best, less best, a lot less. But of course, this was a time when America was all about optimism and happiness, and the conquest of land, conquest of land. So conquest, as a development concept did a lot of heavy lifting back then, like overtly as opposed to subversively talking the taking of land that as well but not only
Will 06:13
Not only! We're conquesting it from the indigenous inhabitants plus other
Rod 06:17
Plus others like they would conquer everything was about conquest, man's dominion over nature, like very, very strongly messaged and overtly message. But if you want to conquest agriculture, you know, right? You of course, plenty, right? So there are some very optimistic theories around rainfall and agriculture back then. So quite a number. For example, in the 1860s, there were geologists who believe the act of settlement itself would actually improve land, rain, etc. And there was a famous saying rain follows the plough
Will 06:45
so they believe it. Is there any logic? So people come and it will start raining?
Rod 06:51
No, no, no, no, you got to harvest first. So it's like faith harvest. Okay. Plough shit up and then rain will want to fall. Okay. You know,
Will 07:01
is there is it God saying God's saying, Okay, now that you've tended this land now I'll give it some rain, or is there something else going here that
Rod 07:08
geology
Will 07:09
you're allowing the moisture in the soil out?
Rod 07:11
No, you pull out it's like little dirt and water magnets. But they're slightly below the surface. But with the plough, they come to the top and the water gets sucked to Earth? Another theory was electrical currents carried on railways are by telegraph wires would increase precipitation. Yeah it does here comes a train, fuck, it's going to rain? You know, the drill?
Will 07:33
Is this some sort of funding application? You know, put it put in the telegraph line or the railway line? Yeah, this is the added benefits, it will bring rain. Yep, I'm sceptical.
Rod 07:43
You should be
Will 07:43
okay.
Rod 07:44
But there's also in the US the idea that if you really wanted to conquer something, and as I say, this metaphor, this idea was very strong. You know, they all knew especially the guys in the gut, like in their waters in their loins. There is no better way to conquer things and with great big explosions. It's so
Will 08:02
Okay, okay,
Rod 08:03
it's no surprise at all, the idea of concussion ism was considered the perfect solution.
Will 08:25
Welcome to the wholesome show, the podcast that will do literally anything to be blown open by the whole of science. The wholesome show is me will grant
Rod 08:35
and not will grant me rod Lambert's. That's how I coped when people said, What's your name? I gotta knock your grant. That's how famous you are.
Will 08:42
Fair enough. That is the other one.
Rod 08:44
Yeah, you're the guy who's not him. Yes, I am. So what's concussionism. And you can probably guess, but I'm going to walk you through the subtleties. And the nuances if you will. And I'll just say how much of what heaps of this comes from two articles, one from the Texas Monthly and another by a very scholarly piece by Michael Whittaker. And it's quite the name is quite long.
Will 09:06
And that's not in the Texas Monthly.
Rod 09:09
No, this scholarly one was in a journal, which one I can't remember, but it's in the show of Texas bi-weekly. So concussionism, began to get its claws into the minds of the US in 1871. Because Edward powers published a book called War and the weather. It wasn't so much a new theory of meteorology, etc. But it's more like a chronicle of civil war accounts that documented Ah, yes, yes, this rings a bell, what 1000s of union Confederate soldiers of all ranks and abilities, or backgrounds they came to believe after the Civil War. Basically, these soldiers no matter where not most theatres of the Civil War, what they what they noticed was after a battle, they would experience drenching rain. Is it because of the trains and the telegraph? Yes, because a lot of trains through battlefields must have been harvesting something in the battle and people running with ploughs dodging the artillery.
Will 09:57
Okay, a lot of people notice this. Sure. Yeah. It wasn't just that at the end of that they fought until it rained or something like like it's getting a bit wet out. Let's go home probably so Morrow, often, often when I was a kid, it'd be after playing it would rain. If you flip it around, it's your mother or your father saying come in, it's raining
Rod 10:18
so they made it rain
Will 10:19
they made it rain.
Rod 10:20
I don't know. It doesn't say who it's parents. Civil War parents, Civil War parents might arrange come in. But so yeah, this connection became basically received wisdom. And so Powers book War and the Weather captured it all basically, the concussions of battle would bring rain. So the bottom line is lots of consistent big boons lead to rain. So if we aim, here are explosions at the sky, we can make it rain whenever we want, is aiming them at the sky. They're like, go boom, boom, up there, get moisture down here. Okay. You know how it runs. I do your a midterm just so powers had put this book together, he compiled all these stories, and he decided it's time to get it tested. Let's try this shit out.
Rod 10:20
And we are fans of people that test
Rod 10:28
we love testing
Will 10:29
the Wholesome Show. This is all about people testing stuff.
Rod 10:36
So as an aside, kind of what you were saying that he never mentioned, nor that he worked out that the battles were often fought in temperate places, whichever, like Virginia, which rained every four days on average. Sure, sure. And battles were almost always started in good weather.
Will 11:16
You would you'd be more likely to start and you're not going to start while it's thunderstorms.
Rod 11:20
It's like do you want to fight Yeah, let's wait till it shitting with rain. Okay. Doesn't matter that he didn't mention that. But no one gives a shit. He had a great idea. The idea had promised it had some traction. Let's test this out. He had a best seller. Yes, yes. It must have been New York Times bestseller or not the first one it did. Alright. The only reason was the best sales because of the only one on the list. They didn't know what
Will 11:39
it's talked about by podcasters today, though
Rod 11:41
So in the period between the first edition in 71 and the second edition of Warren weather in 1890. He started haranguing politicians to pony up some cash. Let's test this. Yeah, yeah, so grant funding, but in what 19 years, he was pushing this and finally he found a champion, a senator from Illinois called Charles Farwell, but he did make this his pet project, he was really into it. So he started to lobby his colleagues. Okay, so in 1890, as the second edition had come out, yeah, with a whole new generation of readers 90, put some science, it was a good theory. You're gonna put some science in it. Yep. And so people went, Yeah, I'm into it. So basically, he was also helped by circumstances because everyone's pouring into the Great Plains, and it's not raining. So Congress painted up in the end about nine grand to two little trenches, but 9000 bucks, which in today's money, that means 40 billion pesos. But so who's gonna run the scheme? I mean, this is a great idea it's got congressional money or Senate or whatever it's got money
Will 12:37
The powers guy himself can't run it.
Rod 12:39
No. He's just a book guy.
Will 12:41
Oh, he's got the idea and has been an experimentalist so he's the theoretical physicist. You gotta get an experimental
Rod 12:47
Also, you need it's government money so you need a team and a due to the top dudes got to be a dude obviously 1890s America is priced so the government they weren't really sure whose jurisdiction it should fall under they're like who's who? Who runs this? What area?
Will 13:00
What department of explosions in the air, with weather?
Rod 13:04
It's like I looked at the list and I don't see one
Will 13:06
Is this the Department of Army or the Department of weather
Will 13:09
or air the Department of projectiles. So they didn't have one of those but they finally went okay Division of Forestry. Inside the division the Department of Agriculture
Will 13:18
again gonna be my next guess you could say it was on the tip of your tongue cos forestry that they used to explosions in the making weather
Rod 13:25
Pine trees do it all the time they lob up seeds and they explode they don't you can't put fake facts in. Now you can't weather it that out in post so the forestry chief said Yeah nah
Will 13:36
not as close to zero experience in either explosions or up in the air or making it rain
Rod 13:42
Yeah, I don't want to be all because we don't have the gear or the authority.
Will 13:46
I'm sorry forestry chief, but it's a little bit unambitious.
Rod 13:49
Oh no, this is the head of agriculture who said no
Will 13:50
head of agriculture. Again, a little bit unambitious.
Rod 13:53
Oh, sorry, it was forestry. Whatever one of them. But it seems more likely the reason you don't want to do because he thought was fucking idiotic. And he was embarrassed. Yeah. Fair enough. He's like, seriously, dude, what are you talking about? Well, I think mostly Wholesome Show stories are all about the people that choose idiocy, rather than avoiding idiocy and paste wants to see someone taking the high path. We applaud you. So he did an annual report to the chief of agriculture and said, Look any experiment like this, not it's not going to work. So the operation was very delegated, like, get out of the way mate who to the assistant secretary of agriculture, so not the forestry, Assistant Secretary of the big department. Okay, a guy called Willits, Edwin Willits. But even Willits even though he was more sympathetic, he was like, I don't think we're equipped to do this. We can't do the experiment what we need as an outsider with the knowledge and the chutzpah to get this thing rolling, and her hero literally time to meet our hero.
Will 14:47
Someone who's got the guts
Rod 14:49
the gumption to go when no one else will go that I don't give a shitness Yeah, try the dumb stuff so that we don't have to General Robert. G. Dyrenforth. Dyrenforth. So at the time, you Here's the story he was working as a patent lawyer in DC.
Will 15:02
Okay, general as a patent lawyer well now now in at night you know it's not the normal not a usual path it's not the usual path to be a general and then go you know what I want to do next right and look patent law.
Rod 15:14
sit in an office and appraise the legalities of this weird drawing
Will 15:18
helps me really not would absolutely like I mean, I get going from doing army stuff to maybe sort of army logistics, trainers, swords, swords cannons,
Rod 15:30
I want to go on the sword business
Will 15:31
or something like that, but not patents.
Rod 15:33
It's weird patent law. Lawyer. Yeah, it sounds really interesting. He was born in Chicago in Illinois, so years ago, 1844. But he, for some reason, was educated in Germany. Okay, he got an electrical engineering degree. And he, at least according to one source, got a PhD from the University of Heidelberg. But it didn't say what in I assume electrical engineering or similar sociology, sociology or women's studies, probably, because at that time, the gentleman particularly powerful ones, very sympathetic to the situation of women, no doubt, it's renowned, especially in Germany and America. He also went to law school at what was called the Columbian university, but it was actually ended up being George Washington. So George Washington University, then you went into the army. That's a lot of things to do before you go to fight for the Union in the Civil War.
Will 16:18
Yeah, but it's a civil war. Everyone gets called up.
Rod 16:20
Yeah correct.
Will 16:20
Like, like they bring it on. Anyone who's got any experience electrical engineering, women's studies, anything like legs, legs and ability to point all of them come in. Yeah, yeah.
Rod 16:29
But he also later on was involved in the, quote, Indian campaigns. So you know, good, good to go do a lot. There. A lot of good dudes back, then.
Will 16:37
We've got the air quotes around the good, very big, air quotes, I guess it was the time, but they all made some terrible decisions.
Rod 16:44
He also probably was a war correspondent for The Chicago post during the Austro-Prussian war.
Will 16:50
Okay, I was gonna say, war correspondent and being the general with one hand,
Rod 16:54
Shoot with one hand, write with the other,
Will 16:55
I think it's a bit of a conflict of interest a little, because if you're the general in the war, it's like, oh, my god, we're doing so well killing it. Look at those losers. On the other side, you don't need we don't need all of them very well.
Rod 17:05
So he was described as a flamboyant character, s tall, well proportioned. He had the face of a thinker of a diplomat of a man of the world.
Will 17:15
We don't describe people's faces enough in like, in fact, they've moved a long way from describing appearance in general, but probably for good reasons. But this is fun.
Rod 17:23
So we had a meeting this morning discussing that and how we should tweak our bios on the website. I think we should describe our faces. Stronger face. Yeah, exactly. Long of limb and heart.
Will 17:34
Well, we all know who has the large head in this podcast.
Rod 17:37
He was also described as broad shouldered capable, extravagantly optimistic
Will 17:43
that that is my oh my god, that is Treviglio. I'm putting that on a tshirt. That is great.
Rod 17:49
The only word I know is yes. This is my vocabulary.
Will 17:52
I don't know how to say no.
Rod 17:53
I can say 900 languages. I made up ways to say yes, that is great. He was also relentlessly self promoting. He saw vast possibilities where others didn't, yes, he asserted that man's dominion over the continent could be extended to the heavens and to the four winds, oh, all the way up to the heavens all the way to the heavens. He was also this is a later description, but you just can't let this one go. Especially in this podcast. A man has a quote, untrammelled by such petty constraints as the scientific method. Which makes me happy,
Will 18:27
petty constraints.
Rod 18:30
He also had a familiarity with explosives and didn't mind a bit of meteorology.
Will 18:34
I'm feeling the Venn diagram coming together. For concussionism, right here. Yeah, yeah, you need someone. flamboyantly optimistic. Yeah.
Rod 18:41
self promoting, like boom, boom, like trickle trickle
Will 18:44
He's the man for the job.
Rod 18:46
Yeah, he's a poster boy. Absolute poster boy for this. Um, so in February at 1891. He was made in ad hoc Special Agent.
Will 18:54
That's just like, you got the deputy sticker on your shirt
Rod 18:56
at best. The Acting Assistant Deputy pro tem.
Will 19:01
I need an intern ad hoc
Rod 19:02
deputy. Yeah. So that was that was his, his name. He spent the next five months putting together a team collecting gear finding a test site. Cool, which is great. You know, it's good science. He chose this a ranch the C Ranch like the letter C? There's the C Ranch. It's near a town called Midland in Texas. But also this this ranch was donated basically, you know, it was owned by a successful Chicago meat packer who said you can use my place
Will 19:28
packed too much meat. Yep. I no longer need my ranch. I'm so successful at packing meat.
Rod 19:34
He's just saying, I'm leaving you my ranch. I'm not going to. You can have the house as well.
Rod 19:34
I want you to blow up the shit from my ranch. And also for Dyrenforth for success there because it's such a particularly dry place. indisputable if it weren't, there's no no God wasn't us. Yep, he's got a baseline. The meat packer also gave him complimentary room and board. He would underwrite some labour costs, y'all.
Rod 19:55
Yep. So they're all there ready to rock like the local businesses chimed in as well and throw in a bit of money here. You're gonna have a free pair of Canvas pants, you get an eyepatch?
Will 20:04
I don't know. I don't know if that's normal in science, if you just pass the hat around the local area where you're doing your experiment
Rod 20:10
I think they wanted to, I think they heard about and went we'll chuck some cash into that? I don't think they asked.
Will 20:15
No, look, I like the idea of doing an experiment and the local town gets so behind your experiment that they're chucking in all of their wares.
Rod 20:22
What's the kind of citizen science we like, where the citizens stay the fuck out of the way, but hand us cash or trinkets. So early in August 1891. They went down to the Sea Ranch, he and his crew, the crew was an impressive mob. They decided he decided oversized kites, which carried rack a rock, which is a particular kind of charge. potassium chlorate nitrobenzene. If you're wondering, often used in mining, I think even now, this was an oversized kites rack rock charges and hydrogen oxygen balloons. So what's the rack rock? It's like a an explosive that you put in canisters. Okay. And so you'd use that to make boom boom, so I put it on giant kites. Alright, so also balloons full of hydrogen oxygen because they go high enough and make big concussive booms up there. Yep. Okay, which I discovered for
Will 21:07
So you're testing how high you'll need the explosion to get the way
Rod 21:12
Yeah, he was quite meticulous in that up, upper more up boom. So of course if you're using this gear you need you need the team who appropriately so he brought a balloonist nice, obviously, contest. Three kites, no, no kites. I think he had a kite. I think maybe he worked.
Will 21:29
Are you just gonna get the local villages to fly a kite? Probably. In particular, if it's a cart with a bomb on it. I want some of the kids
Rod 21:36
Kids love kites.
Will 21:37
I know they do. That's the problem. You need an expert doing this.
Rod 21:40
I don't know if his ad on Craigslist for expert colliders to receive many responses that might be the problem. You're brought to chemists along because you have to feel produce hydrogen and oxygen. Yeah to pronounce it you know to get floaty, floaty and boom boom. But me. He brought two guests of honour the mare know, an ex Confederate general who had patented a method of artificial rainmaking involving balloons with attached dynamite charges.
Will 22:05
So he got a patent for it. Yeah. Don't you have to be actually successful? Your invention to get a patent? I don't know. So you can patent something that doesn't work?
Rod 22:15
Yeah, I patented a perpetual motion machine. I don't think Yeah. So he came along well, because also there are some suspicion that Dyrenforth got onto this because he saw some patents being applied for that made him go. Okay, this is pretty sweet. This is where this is where I can do my thing. Yeah, let's blow some my flamboyant flies here. Yep. So the ex Confederate generals, one of the gifts the other was Edward powers, the man who wrote the blog.
Will 22:37
So it's two people that are thinking in the same sort of way. Yeah. So the other guy's doing roughly the same sort of thing and powers is the genius behind it all.
Rod 22:44
Yeah. And then he brought someone who was not thinking in the same kind of way a guy called George Curtis, who was with the Smithsonian Institution. He was a meteorologist and he was deeply sceptical about the whole foundation
Rod 22:56
A party pooper. Yeah, they brought a party pooper.
Rod 22:58
Boring George Curtis. Why did they do that? I don't know. I reckon actually, you bring along the nice eye so you can go even this old boring fart error had to say yes. All right. All right. That's my guess. I don't know if that's a peer review. Yes, exactly. Except I don't know if George has considered himself a peer to Dyrenforth
Will 23:15
or vice versa either way, either way. He's he's doing the review.
Rod 23:18
Yep, So August Nine. This is how they got there. early August, August nine. It began. They unleashed. This is the quote unleashing their fearsome barrage as against the atmosphere, inflating and exploding several dozen oxy hydrogen balloons and detonating 1000s of pounds of explosives over the course of the next few weeks. 1000s of pounds of explosives. Oh, wow. Yeah, they can fuck around. They're like if we're gonna do this, because maybe you're simulating a battle not going ping. Yeah, lots of artillery and a battle let's really go for it. So but apparently also, he was really keen on the whole military simulation thing. So he set up like basically three lines that look like artillery batteries. Because
Will 23:59
that was it. It was the shape of the battle that brought the rain Yeah, put some little soldiers out there as well. Alright everyone,
Rod 24:05
he set up so three lines two miles long.
Will 24:07
Jesus Christ.
Rod 24:08
This is a shit tonne of stuff like this. This isn't to throw a few sticks in the run out of the way before they land and blow up on you. So the front line was a row of jury rigged mortars and they were set to lob dynamite and rock rock into the sky Cisco and hope it worked.
Will 24:23
Okay, can you can can just pause for a sec. Because you know me I like to I like to think even even if this works, how much expensive we talking to get your drop of rain. Like I feel like if a farmer has to set up three lines one of mortars you're gonna tell me what the other two Oh, second. Oh, yeah. And it works. It gets you a nice good ol thunderstorm. Yes, I think that the farming is still not quite sustainable.
Rod 24:48
Well, look, you wouldn't do just for one farm. By doing that. You probably get at least three farms with you probably
Will 24:53
maybe more. You could pass the hat around the local village. You can say let's get it together.
Rod 24:57
We need more dynamite why? Because of the drought and
Will 24:58
buy 700 tonnes of dynamite.
Rod 25:01
second line, a line of custom built kites with dynamite charges. The counts vary though either tethered by electrical cable so you could send a detonation signal and war sticks of dynamite just long fuse, which I love, scatter and hope you've timed it right. So that was the second line, third line, the main line. So these are in the main lines.
Will 25:22
These are just a warm up because the atmosphere needed to be suffering ticket like a battle, you got to take a limb and then get to the real business.
Rod 25:28
You don't need it straight out of the fridge. You blow up a few things near it first. So it was a 12 foot balloons like 12 foot round. I think it was round. It didn't say it didn't say with diameter, or radius or whatever. But I filled with oxygen hydrogen, and the guests are supposed to get hundreds of feet into the air to be again exploded by electrical charges so tethered to wires on the ground. He also went further with the military look because one source says even in the superficial and intangible details, Dyrenforth adopted a military model. He was wearing a pith helmet and cavalry boots through the whole thing.
Will 25:59
Yes, but if you get the opportunity, pith helmet and cavalry boots I bet I know that I know they've they've got a bad look now not fabulous.
Rod 26:08
I'll be wearing them now if I had them. If I had either. I had one to Cavelry boot
Will 26:11
Why have you not bought them? Then? Buy yourself a pith helmet?
Rod 26:14
Do you know, it's partially because the bank accounts aren't only mine anymore.
Will 26:18
Oh my god.
Rod 26:19
It's like What's this $900?
Will 26:20
Why have you bought salary boots? Why have you bought 70 pith helmets? I don't know. Could I come in your size?
Rod 26:26
One must there must be one. So but also a lot of his party like to look that way to so many had pith helmets. And there's a great photo I'll show you here where not only many have have had pith helmets, but a bunch of them are holding shotguns too. You know, I suppose in case the weather doesn't work you go hand to hand with
Will 26:43
I mean this is just literally on fourth fifth from the left 19th century sitting down guys doing dumb stuff. Yeah, dressed up like idiots. They're like this is what they did.
Rod 26:52
That's the summary. So that's him sitting in the chair. But I love the holding shotguns it's like fucking the dynamite didn't work gentlemen. Open fire. In case some bears attack. Yep, no, a lot of bears. The bears might be scared and by all the explosions, so you're gonna have a shock. I'm ready. Let's do the best thing. Meat ranch. meat packer owns it. There's an explosion. I'm going to be meat though. Front page news all around the country. It just went off. Everyone was just into this shit. So after a few initial wreck rock charges went off on the Monday the 10th they telegraph the senator fire Well, that just went preliminary. Find some explosives yesterday, raining hard today. Worked. Yep, that's what he said. newspaper editors were convinced it was working to those like he's onto something here. So by the 13th So a few days later, the first day of the week. Papers coast to coast we're saying this guy rocks This is working smarter shit is on it. He's the saviour of National Agriculture and
Will 27:42
when I know there's gonna be a twist here that says maybe it didn't
Rod 27:46
No it's one of the good ones. Last time I told you that it was so why wouldn't this be the case today? So we got some choice headlines Rocky Mountain News in Denver just said they made rain Chicago time said the visionary fall well the senator had outdone Moses
Will 28:05
out done Moses done Moses. It's a little bit sacrilegious, but it's nice
Rod 28:11
Washington Post went off. So they had a heading bombs cause rain to fall but they continued with one of my favourite senses ever written about stuff. In this context of the programme is elaborate. The material abundant and the science involved exhaustive. Oh, okay. New York Sun even wrote a bit of poetry,
Will 28:27
but this is the thing I love it like anytime we drill into some some of them we had in the 19th century, they put some poems we made a poem we put some poems, so make it better more grandiose.
Rod 28:36
This is a really good one. It's not very long. Are you ready? No, I'm not I am cloud compelling Dyrenforth a mighty able wight.
Will 28:46
Did you have to
Rod 28:48
you have to because poems have to rhyme. So it goes on
Will 28:50
a mighty abled wight
Rod 28:53
as in g h t, because they're not racist? Not white man. Wight as in you know, cave white or some kind of creature? No, yeah. No. W IG HT.
Will 29:03
Okay. It doesn't really make sense. It actually made more sense. I know. It's a poem
Rod 29:08
But it's gonna make sense. Because here's the second one.
Will 29:10
It made more sense when it was just racist.
Rod 29:12
I can call the clouds together with a load of dynamite, which is basically a drinking song. Really. It's not a poem. It's not. So you know, well done New York Sun. So two days after the first test, it was also reported in the town of Van Horn in Texas, that they'd experienced the heaviest rain in years. And they said, Dyrenforth did it. Jesus. What they didn't mention was Van Horn is 180 miles away from the test site.
Will 29:35
No, but that's how it works. That's exactly exactly it blows the
Rod 29:39
rain that happened in America in the day after he was there because then no question. Um, they also didn't mentioned that August was the beginning of the rainy season in that area. Anyway, we didn't come up knots. We also that fewer than half of the barrages made any appreciable rain volume at all. And in one of the instances the weather bureau had already predicted rain
Will 29:58
circumstances
Rod 30:00
exactly he did it, you fricken negative nancies we're not interested in that. So the team kept going and they sent out the steady stream of the equivalent of press releases one described it as panting press releases about the immense explosions in the rain. They call it a bad thing personally. I've never seen anything so sorry, next experiment August the 18th. So is the ninth now the 18th they reported that after firing the ground batteries for 12 hours. I mean, you want to simulate a battle 12 hours of just chucking huge booms into the air.
Will 30:32
You know, the other thing I just thinking back about these poor farmers that might have to do this is that you know, the stories you hear about farmers is they're up at dawn, and they're doing the thing you know, I gotta milk the cows, I gotta milk the fences.
Rod 30:43
I gotta, milk myself.
Will 30:45
Everything's got to be milked. Then I got to do all this other stuff. But if you're adding in 12 hours worth of explosions per how often do we have to do this?
Rod 30:53
For some reason? I'm very tired this evening. It's all it's milking. I've been doing Yeah, 12 hours, and they exploded, quote large quantities of Oxy hydrogen gas in 10 foot diameter balloons, and rain fell in torrents for about two and a half hours. It was August 18 August 25 more ground fire detonations balloon explosions. They said several more inches of rain filled during the night. So it's all going swimmingly beautifully. Yeah. So he and his team are reporting on all the successes all over the place. The Press love him. So the next obvious step, get back to Washington capitalise on the victories over the weather, get some more cash go bigger. So when he got back to Washington, he berated his doubters and saying, you know, fuck you we made it rain like 12 times or more. And he wrote a piece in the North American review, the title was imaginatively called, can we make it rain? Yes, that was what it says on the team answer. Yes. Yeah, definitely. And his language, though, there's only one snippet that really caught my eye in one piece, he was trying to explain the you know what was going on. So he says after each explosion, the subsequent inrush of columns of air will perhaps by the motion of the earth on its axis, not be just end to end or point against point. But the columns passing each other, a will or wall will be started, which widening as it extends upwards will present a vortex whereby heavy or moisture laden air will be drawn from afar.
Will 32:14
He's using the baffle he's using the word make people think, okay, he knows
Rod 32:17
what he's over in February later, he's happy 100%. So fairly science ish
Will 32:21
Get some vortexes and the vortexes is rub against each other
Rod 32:23
and then the axis of the Earth, the Earth moves a bit, and then water comes down. And that helps. Good because you've got to rely on the earth moving that's that's
Will 32:30
why he can't stop it. You can't say you need to stop for a bit. And then
Rod 32:35
less 19th century people call it beefy. Then I kind of
Will 32:35
Hold your fist up and shriek it's not going to work. Did it work? Did Congress put the hands back in their pockets? Yes, tell them to tick. So Dyrenforth's in treaties to Congress word I describe them as beefy and enthusiastic. You describe that's my description. Okay, that's summarised taken and
Rod 32:54
French boef boef and enthusiastic. He also included in these reports and you know, pleads or, you know, persuasive communications a whole bunch of testimonial letters from esteemed civil war veterans.
Will 33:09
Are they telling the story about after our battle right now?
Rod 33:12
Just this guy's the shit and it works.
Will 33:13
Okay. Did they have any evidence other than his evidence for
Rod 33:18
so one of them was a guy who's the governor of Maine and he was decorated with a major medal of honour during the war. He was a major general and said blah blah. Another guy Illinois representative of civil war generals guy called John McNulty
Will 33:30
A General of generals?
Rod 33:31
Oh I I apologise Illinois representative and
Will 33:36
Representating in the general
Rod 33:38
case by conjunctions also former president and also former Major General in the Union Army James A Garfield Hey, so he wrote testimonials
Will 33:46
super corrupt
Rod 33:47
they didn't mention that here
Will 33:48
Sorry for the slip James A
Rod 33:50
Love Your Work might have been you don't. They're also six pages of other testimonials from local eyewitnesses who had wandered by to observe the proceedings. Sounds pretty strong. You seem interested can you write us a little this shit rocks.
Will 34:04
And you listener if you if you want to write a testimonial for us, you too can do that.
Rod 34:07
Jump on to Apple podcasts because you know, they like us or the one that you listen to all your own. Make up your own and then review it for us. But what about the science in these reports in these in treaties for
Will 34:20
I'll put my guessing game on Yeah, it's all perfect. Yep. And we use it today. Yep. And there are no downsides.
Rod 34:28
Yep. And it definitely existed. There was definitely science in there. I got them all. So he covered it like this. One of the main lobbying documents he said, although he'd received a number of suggested theories as to the mechanisms of concussive pluie culture, artificial rainmaking and see what he was unable to understand many of them so they exist. Why don't Why
Will 34:49
He just called them vortex walls
Rod 34:51
Yeah, yeah, I've made up my own. I made up my own
Will 34:54
other dimensions.
Rod 34:56
Also, some other things didn't appear in the lobbying documents Like when much of what he would told everyone and what the newspapers had reported was bullshit which is there was definitely explosions and stuff okay you did that the rain part and they got the ranch not so much
Will 35:12
it just might well
Rod 35:16
perspectives points of view
Will 35:19
I heard torrents he said they were torrents
Rod 35:21
I didn't I reported that it was said there were torrents so the big city newspapers didn't ever none of them sent reporters so they just relied on the self reports not a one checked it out themselves. They just went fuck this works. Yes, he said it did. He's a general he blows shit up but two agricultural trade papers did send reporters these are the two you probably know them already. farm implement news.
Will 35:45
I like that love that when I liked that one. That's where, you know, I like my implements, especially farm ones, especially the farm ones. That's where I get all the latest goss.
Rod 35:54
true. Look. I never buy a tractor unless it's reviewed positively and farm implement news or how she could review it to your welcome. Texas farm and ranch was the other one. You know, the other one, the second tier, it's not as much fun no one cares. So they sent reporters and what they reported contradicted pretty much everything the team was saying the big papers were reporting.
Will 36:15
You know, normally normally there's lots of stories that we do. It's like, okay, something happened, but it wasn't, you know, something else was going on? Yeah, didn't happen in the way that we thought blah, blah, blah. But yeah, just lying, just lying the whole time.
Rod 36:28
Were they lying? Or did they just see what they wanted to see? Okay, tell me. So the Ag reporter said when they got to the C Ranch they found I love this...
Will 36:35
deluges of water, torrents of rivers of crops just bursting forth.
Rod 36:40
You've clearly read the articles, they found a group of inept scientific novices who
Will 36:44
that's these guys.
Rod 36:46
Battling severe cases of diarrhoea brought on by drinking alkaline well water.
Will 36:52
Look, look, we've all battled out severe cases. And it doesn't need to go in the newspaper. No, like I think that's unfair. Now with a trade, you can still do very good science while whilst battling severe cases of diarrhoea
Rod 37:06
Some of my best research has been done on the toilet
Will 37:08
no doubt and one day listen to we might just do a story of of all of the scientists who have battled severe cases of diarrhoea touring, you then went on research.
Rod 37:15
Yeah. So they're also watched helplessly as their balloons caught fire or were blown miles away by high winds. Their homemade mortars self destructed, their hydrogen generators became engulfed in flames and their kites wouldn't fly. So that's cool. And remember the Smithsonian meteorology guy George Kern? I do, I was gonna ask about him. His summary was there was in appreciable precipitation. So for example, August 18, the middle one Dyrenforth claim to produce the torrential downpour. Curtis recorded two hundredths of an inch of water, which is about what three nanometers
Will 37:40
It is not a lot.
Rod 37:52
Feck all. He also said the rain Dyrenforth had reported on August 26. did fall. Okay, so that was already been predicted by the weather bureau coming anyway, Dr. Fulton Rasheed about that. So while he continued to lobby in Washington, his team stayed in Texas and ran two more attempts
Will 38:10
And this is where the good ones were.
Rod 38:11
Yes. So one was the mayor of El Paso said can you come and make some rain plays down here for sure. So the quote was basically after lots of firing nuttin so they reported to Congress it was ascertained that soon after midnight rain had begun to fall within a few miles of El Paso so what was very common here is that go rain fill just not where we did the boom booms. Ah, look, but it's got to be connected.
Will 38:32
It's obvious look we went by thing rain fell. Yeah, no, no, there's secret vortexes. Yep. There's like a wormhole. And it goes through there and pops up somewhere else. Yeah, that's all that's going on terrain and explosions. We just need to do more science, and then work out how it's happening. So yes, yeah, all of all of these booms. Obviously. That's the monsoon in India. If you did it in Texas, that's the problem. You just got to put the bombs somewhere else
Rod 38:54
stop blowing so much shit up. We're drowning here
Will 38:56
Put some bombs and sort of chase the rain from from India or you blow in either direction. Keep there long enough until he gets to where you want it.
Rod 39:03
I like that. The second one of these two tests while he was in Washington, Corpus Christi in a small town of San Diego, not the one you know, in South Texas. There were inconclusive fairings because of wet weather, and they set off the quote was truly enormous amounts of ordinance says Here you go. Yes. How much 800 charges of dynamite it says 1500 pounds over rackarock 7000 cubic feet of Oxy hydrogen gas.
Will 39:35
So I know that there are stereotypes of idiot men. Yeah, but my God, they are really taking the biscuit of I've just a bunch of guys doing dumb stuff.
Rod 39:46
Yeah, no report of rain was falling in Torrance by 4am. So early at 92 So the following year Dyrenforth had lobbied the shit out of people giving them lots of reports claim huge success with his eliminate a preliminary results and they said great, here's 10 grand. Okay, Keep going. But criticisms were starting to grow. So political cartoons basically said he's a charlatan the Smithsonian guy
Will 40:08
political cartoons are...
Rod 40:09
That's their job
Will 40:10
That's their job. But they're also on the money about fraud often really quite early and they can see okay, this is ridiculous clown who is not going to dwell drop. The clown college political cartoon would love this.
Rod 40:21
Yeah. And they did. Curtis, the meteorologist said he long since returned to Washington in disgust. And he wrote a deeply critical article and said things basically apparently blistering tirades, calling the experiment a miserable farce it's commanding general and inexcusable bungler his botch work a burlesque on science and commonsense. New York Tribune mocked him and they said look since explosions create rain would not String Orchestra is sent aloft in balloons sue the clouds to stop severe storms rehearse you cuddle them,
Will 40:53
baby, non concussive. Okay, okay,
Rod 40:57
They were taking the piss bro.
Will 40:58
I know I get it. Okay.
Rod 40:59
Criticism gets wider and louder. So by the end of August, he was being caught. It was absurd, shameless misrepresentation, utter ridiculous failure, etc. and a Professor Alexander McFarland, who was a bit like Curtis, he was an eyewitness to these things, and he hammered out they call it a fulminating critique of the inaugural issue of the Texas Academy of Sciences. He was peppered with phrases and terms like no better than the medicine man or the Indians.
Will 41:23
Did you have to go there he did. Yeah. Thanks, buddy.
Rod 41:26
Yeah, useless. Imposter, ignorance and so called facts and cranky arguments.
Will 41:32
So those bits were all fine. That was fine. That's all fine. Did just didn't have to get right gotta
Rod 41:36
get some racism. Yeah, just a little bit. Got it. Otherwise it's not it's not journalism. Darn fourth did not give a fuck. He was completely undeterred. So in November of 92, he keeps going, yes. Because he's still got the 10 Grand remember? Yes. Okay. But he must know this isn't working. Surely I'm not convinced that he does know for sure
Will 41:54
thinking this is working is he like torrents torrents everywhere,
Rod 41:57
relentlessly optimistic? Mega self promoter, and it's
Will 42:01
1/200 of an inch and he's calling him a torrent. There's got to be something wrong with his eyes at this point.
Rod 42:06
Yeah. So in November 19 1892. He goes to San Antonio and apparently was met by a huge crowd. He had 40 tonnes of explosives. So he chose to test at a test place near a hotel a few miles out of the downtown area of San Antonio. So in test one, he puts a shit tonne of explosives called rosellite.
Will 42:25
Hang on. This is downtown.
Rod 42:27
Yeah, for myself. Not an idiot. Near hotel.
Will 42:30
It's still you're in a town as opposed to in a ranch
Rod 42:34
test. Test fire. 500 feet from the hotel. There's a mesquite tree he puts this rosellite explosive in there. The quote is when it went off, he both obliterated the tree and broke every window in the hotel and like yes, it would.
Will 42:48
Do you blow up a tree? Yes. Are we doing balloons in the atmosphere? You're getting a bit lazy with your
Rod 42:53
I don't know why he needed to. I don't know why he did. So the San Antonio Daily Express so that his mortar shells either exploded within the guns or nearby on the ground failing miserably to attain their objective in the skies. This is when he went on with it. But he kept on for four days. And he was just trying again with no no success, and apparently an ungrateful public G to the dauntless general Dyrenforth the whole time. So the Washington Post who were fans also got mad
Will 43:17
Yeah, but who wouldn't go if you're gonna go and watch this idiot blows and stuff and fail or succeed? ≈
Rod 43:24
Yeah, but cares is explained exactly.
Will 43:25
If he succeeds then cool all luck to him. But you know boring
Rod 43:29
boring destructive fireworks
Will 43:30
I'm going along.
Rod 43:31
Yeah, you know, I'm there for all of it. There's no question I'll be there good. Yes. pith helmet in hand short gun under the arm. Um, yeah, so the Washington Post now basically kicked it in said the whole hullabaloo did not lead to any more water than would furnish a canary bird with its morning bath on the Chicago time said the money would have been less ridiculously employed if it were devoted to the manufacture of whistles out of pigs tails. That old insult Okay, so basically the government went we're in the chips with you, you're out and give us back this five grand unspent give it back.
Will 44:01
But that would have been the good test. Yes, just one more test and we would have found a way to hone it.
Rod 44:06
So then the Department of Agriculture did not renew his appointment as a special agent. And even Edward powers as the father of the theory basically distanced himself from the general and said all the experiments were shoddily executed.
Will 44:18
My theories were good. You just did them wrong.
Rod 44:20
You didn't wrong your testimony ticket. So he wasn't happy either. So basically, Dyrenforth concussion fame lasted about 15 months. It was all going beautifully for him and during the good times he got the nickname general Jupiter Pluvius.
Will 44:35
Stop it, he wrote that nickname himself lucky probably everyone calls me general Jimmy.
Rod 44:40
Yes. I mean, obviously.
Will 44:44
You clown named No one. No one's like you're not at a party and you got out. We need a nickname for the guy over there and goes oh, that's obviously general Jupiter Pluvius
Rod 44:55
along and again they do not NIV or BoomBoom General Jupiter Pluvius and he was referred apparently in the press referred to this way. But by 1893, his new nickname became very cleverly Dry Hence Forth.
Will 45:09
Well, yeah, I mean, boom, snap that's very 19th century that like that, like the word henceforth back then
Rod 45:14
I don't mind it now. Also, his reputation may not have been enhanced by the fact that he didn't always represent himself entirely, accurately know. First off, he wasn't a general he left the Army as a major and one source suggested maybe he'd been encouraged to leave once.
Will 45:35
So okay, so there's this makes the patent lawyer thing a little bit more plausible
Rod 45:39
It makes a bit more sense. Despite all the authoritative sciences proclamations, he had zero training and meteorology, and maybe he read some newspaper stuff or something. Also, he didn't know much about explosives.
Will 45:50
Now he seems to be doing them all right. I mean, not perfectly.
Rod 45:53
He's letting them off board is blowing up in the tube. Not great. Okay, not growing trees blowing up. But in his defence, he was a patent attorney. Okay. So you know, not terrible. So basically he was defeated, the weather beat him. And the US government in 19th century said okay, rainmaking is over. We're not going to do that anymore. But concussionism didn't die yet. Basically private investors got in so my favourite there's a few buttons give you one the serial manufacturer, a CW post, like Benjamin cereal, like like yeah, complex. Yeah, not like he was a cereal manufacturer. He manufactured a lot of cereal that you eat. So he was apparently a bit of a tycoon from Texas. He believed concussionism was cool. So from 1911 to 14, he spent 50 grand to conduct a series of rain battles, and he detonated dynamite a whole long and a Scotland after in a town named after him, I assume post city every now and then there was a bit of rain. So he basically predicted that rainmaking would one day replace irrigation.
Will 46:49
What a place to live. What a wonderful place to live.
Rod 46:52
He died in 1914 Convinced he could shoot up rain whenever he wanted to. But he couldn't. And basically the French in World War One did some experiments and proved doesn't work. Find the French word. Let's test this out is bullshit.
Will 47:05
Well, look, I would say that the other experiments proved that didn't work as well. They just choose not to read the evidence. I think
Rod 47:11
they actually wrote it up and stuff and said, Here's what actually happened. So basically, Dyrenforth fades into obscurity, the end of his life as a patent attorney in DC. But he did make the headlines one last time just after his death in 1910. Had nothing to do with concussion ism. It was because of the unique stipulations of his will. Which is how I actually found this kind of sport. Yeah. Okay. So the TLDR version, he had married a woman called Jenny de lacy in 1866. They had four kids, his daughter had a son, one of his daughters, Robert Robert Jr. has a grandson. Yep, grandson. Her husband died 12 months after the birth. And then she died a year after that. So the kids were orphaned and in the background, Dyrenforth and Jenny were having a crappy relationship and she unusually managed to leave him and she got some kind of alimony apparent quite unusual. And so she ended up basically taking the grandson of the adopting are not quite adopting, but the grandson was living with her Dyrenforth then abducted the grandson, Jesus, okay, because he wanted him Yeah. and was later for some reason allowed to adopt him formally. Okay, don't get why. And then the year before his death, so 1909 He wrote his will and it was very specific. He was at this point really pissed off with not only his wife, but women more surprising. I'm not shocked. So Robert Jr. was 11. At the time, he would be able to inherit Dyrenforth's entire estate, but not until he was 28. His Dyrenforth's brothers were the executors and trustees. And he said things like this, I particularly request my executors thoughtfully and well guarded my beloved son from women and sensibly that is quietly, gradually and impressively, though to no erratic extreme, to let him be informed and know the indirect, artful and parasitical nature of most of the unfortunate sex, and to care that he may not marry beneath him. So his feelings were very hurt. He also said that the son should not come under the influence or affiliate with one Jenny Dyrenforth or her daughter. Oh, which, I assume was probably his daughter too, but I don't know. Maybe she had kids. Possibly should Robert Jr. be subjected or exposed to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church or become a Catholic? I hereby direct that each and every bequest herein shall become null and void. Oh, thanks, man. And everything shall pass entirely to the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. Okay, fair enough. This guy really had going on. He then added an addendum instructions as to the education of Robertson George Dyrenfroth, yeah, he had to go to public schools. From the age of 12. He had to go to a European country every long school vacation, a that's not bad and become proficient in the language of the country.
Will 49:44
I would like that stipulated for me.
Rod 49:45
He told them the audit.
Will 49:46
I'm doing sorry, everyone. I gotta go on my European holiday. Buy my grandpappy
Rod 49:51
I'm gonna go and learn Albanian now. Yeah. So he told him the order. It should be France, Spain, Italy, not alphabetical Greece, no, Germany, Denmark and then Russia. Okay, so that's it. None of the small ones. No, none of the swans and that's many years. I don't know, I don't think it's math was great, because he also had to have instructions in athletics and dancing and become reasonably accomplished at both the violin and the piano. All of this or you don't get the money, Jesus Christ, all of this or no money. He had to graduate high school at 14. Then he had to go to Harvard. But he could only spend six months as a freshman. So he graduated before he was 18. Jesus had to graduate before 18. Immediately after Harvard, he was supposed to go to Oxford and do law before he turned eighteen. Sure, sure. Okay, buddy. Yeah. And then at 18, he had to go to West Point, serve in the army, and then become a practising lawyer, Jesus. So that's why that made the headlines did the will happen? Not because the brothers just said no. So his wife got everything anyway. And it turned out he bullshitted about how much money now because the state was, it was deeply in debt, I think about 80% of it got chewed up by debts. And ultimately, Jenny got legal guardianship, and none of her in laws or other people complaint. So just to end off that we can't leave rainmaking without just a quick look at where it went. So today, it's like the early 60s In the US had a Bureau of Reclamation, and they did a bunch of cloud seeding experiments. So they use you know, iodine, or silver iodide. And that kind of attracts water. And it makes clear to everyone they do operation popeye. I know that comes in a moment. Operation popeye was when the military came back in and they wanted to use weather modification as a weapon. So you've heard of this, disrupt the enemy in Vietnam, that was the one I told you, there was an international treaty in 77, that banned the use of weather modification for military purposes. But the interesting thing with this other common thread running through it is many of the experiments from Dyrenforth all the way through, they weren't particularly useful, or they weren't very well done, or scientists when they're not working. They'd spend millions and millions of dollars different funding agencies to throw money at it. And the results were generally inconclusive. And the problem is basically, it's really difficult to design and conduct weather experiments. So you can't really prove cloud seeding is worked out. Well. You have to show that your results would not have happened already. Um, so that doesn't really work so well. So in the end, look, it didn't stop us. There's some stuff going on in the even the early 2020s. To combat American mega droughts, cloud seeding. There has been some success with generating some snowfall, and then that turns into melt water. But the bottom line is is the bottom line. rainmaking might work a bit but it's hard to be sure. And even if it does work, it doesn't do anything about the reasons why these droughts exist. And they continue. It says no rain in the atmosphere. You can't bring it down. Yeah, there's no moisture to suck. Yeah, you can't suck them think I think everything I've heard is you can transform a cloud that is full of water into rain.
Will 52:35
Yeah. Can't make rain where there's no water.
Rod 52:37
No, so well done. Robert, well done rainmakers and I don't know. Do things that mean you don't need to make rain.
Will 52:46
That was Or, have more fun, and just find any excuse to have an explosion and just enjoy it. And don't lie about it.
