a popular belief in northern europe that shooting prevents hail caused many agricultural towns to fire cannons without ammunition. veterans of the seven years' war, napoleonic wars, and the american civil war reported that rain fell after every large battle. after their stories were collected in "war and weather", the united states department of war in the late 19th century purchased $9,000 of gunpowder and explosives to detonate them in texas. the results of the test, supervised by robert dyrenforth, were inconclusive.