100 YEARS AGO

Among the local fêtes of parts of the north of France the procession of giants forms the most original and picturesque custom. Each Flemish town formerly possessed its giant, but this curious custom preserves its ancient ceremonial in only a few localities. Lille has not seen for a long time the procession of the giant “Phinar”, which was vilified as was its colleague “Annéen” at Valenciennes. The festivals of giants are still preserved at Dunkirk, where “Papa-Rœusse” is the idol of the inhabitants, at Cassel, at Gand, at Brussels, and especially at Douai, where every June “Gayant” has a triumphal procession accompanied by his wife, “Marie Cageon”, and their three children, “Jacquot”, “Fillon” and “Bimbin”.

From Nature 26 September 1901.

50 YEARS AGO

In describing and assessing the results of artificial rain-making experiments, which attempt to induce precipitation by 'seeding' suitable clouds with pellets of dry ice, crystals of silver iodide or small water-droplets, Mr. Mason said that there has been a distinct tendency to draw spectacular conclusions on the basis of too few observations, and that too little attention has been paid to the need for adequate control experiments. However, many cases have been reported of rain falling from clouds a few minutes after seeding. Although in any particular case it is not possible to ascertain that this would not have happened without seeding, in many careful dry-ice experiments carried out in Australia... rain has been observed to fall from seeded cumulus clouds, while similar clouds in the immediate vicinity produced no precipitation. Since, for a high probability of success in the dry-ice experiments, the cloud top must be colder than − 7 °C. and rain is likely to fall naturally if it is colder than − 12 °C., there is only a narrow range of conditions in which seeding with dry ice can anticipate natural events. The position is still more unfavourable in the case of silver iodide, which suffers the additional disadvantage that it becomes inactive as an ice nucleus when exposed to strong sunlight for about one hour. Calculations indicate that spraying small water-droplets into the base of the cloud should be a more efficient method of releasing showers from warm cumuli, and the results of recent experiments in Australia are encouraging.

From Nature 29 September 1951.