Abstract
M. ANGOT, the eminent director of the French Meteorological Service, has made a valuable and authoritative contribution, published in the Journal of the French Academy of Agriculture for May, to the literature of a well-worn controversy. The alleged connection between rainfall and gunfire, in favour of which so many champions sprang up during the wet periods of 1914–16, has recently lost favour as a subject for argument, owing, no doubt, to the coincidence of the spring drought of 1917 with the Allied offensive on the Western front; but so short is the public memory, especially for negative evidence, that the incidence of 3 in. of rain during a recent summer afternoon in North-West London has proved sufficient to disinter the bone of contention. The mental attitude of the public towards a theory of this nature is of great psychological interest: there is little doubt that, should we experience this summer a repetition of the weather of July, 1888, when snow fell in London, followed by a recurrence of that of August, 1911, when the thermometer touched 100° F. at Greenwich, both phenomena would generally be attributed to the war.
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HAWKE, E. Rainfall and Gunfire . Nature 99, 467–468 (1917). https://doi.org/10.1038/099467a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/099467a0