bootsykowan's Blog

A Letter from Benjamin Franklin to William Brownrigg, 1773 Dear Sir: I thank you for the remarks of your learned friend at Carlisle. I had, when a youth, read and smiled at Pliny's account of a practice among the seamen of his time, to still the waves in a storm by pouring oil into the sea; which he mentions as well as the use made of oil by the divers; but the stilling a tempest by throwing vinegar into the air had escaped me. I think with your friend that it has been of late too much the mode to slight the learning of the ancients. The learned, too, are apt to slight too much the knowledge of the vulgar. The cooling by evaporation was long an instance of the latter. The art of smoothing the waves by oil is an instance of both. http://jcbmac.chem.brown.edu/baird/Chem22i/Avogadro/Be
nFranklin.html

15 years ago this got me interested in vinegar.  So I tried it.  Throwing vinegar at the wind.  Problem is that the way the neighborhood was laid out, my home was protected from the wind.  So to remember to try it out was rare.  However, the 3 or 4 times I did have an opportunity, it seemed to work.  But that was more wishful thinking I think:)

Guess I'll have to buy some vinegar and keep it with me when I take my Baruch for walks.  I keep thinking of hurricanes and tornadoes.