Word: ricard
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...dubious are the theories that sunspots affect the habits and numbers of animals, cause droughts, tidal waves, earthquakes, tornadoes. The withering drought of 1929 was close to a sunspot peak, but there were other drought causes-light snows, early thaws-the preceding winter. California's Father Jerome Sixtus Ricard, S. J., "Padre of the Rains," had astonishing success in predicting weather by sunspots, but Father Jerome is dead now and his secret seems to have died with...
...first, in a tiny shack among the olives, he worked with a four-inch telescope which had belonged to the College since 1860. In 1895 they bought him a second-hand eight-inch telescope and, because there was not enough money for a scientific mounting, Father Ricard called upon his students to help him improvise a mount. Day by day for years the tall figure in the black gown scanned the sky. Chiefly he trained his poor instrument...
...more than a quarter-century after he had begun, he elucidated a sunspot theory, modestly crediting its discovery to the 17th Century heretic Galileo Galilei. Sunspots, Father Ricard declared, exert a definite influence on weather conditions, cause tidal waves, earthquakes, tornadoes, affect even the moods of animals. After observing sunspots, he forecast California's weather for long advance periods...
Worldwide astronomers scoffed. But Father Ricard had compared 4,000 weather maps with 3,000 sunspot observations, was not to be abashed. Blandly he replied to those who called him an ecclesiastical eccentric, by calling such an eminent astronomer as Herbert Hall Turner of Oxford a "wild theorist." In 1914 he was engaged in patient controversy with Astronomer Albert Porta of Turin, Astronomer Edward Lucien Larkin of Lowe's Observatory, Astronomer William Wallace Campbell of the Lick Observatory (now president of the University of California...
...Father Ricard's head whitened as his years grew many. In 1921 those who had faith in him helped him celebrate the golden jubilee of his entry into the priesthood. Fourteen California missions tolled their bells in his honor. The California Knights of Columbus raised $500,000 to build him a new observatory...