832 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



descriptions as to how children will thrive who are born under such 

 and such signs in the heavens. 



Moreover, numerous customs and prejudices still reveal the re- 

 mains of a belief in the stars ; such expressions as " unlucky days " 

 and " numbers," " our stars," " saturnine," " jovial," and the like 

 being firmly implanted in nearly every language. 



To the superficial view, the whole system of astrology will appear 

 as a vexatious error of mankind ; to the deeper observation, however, 

 there is discernible not only the fund of astronomical knowledge 

 acquired, but also a purer sentiment lying at the basis of all, acknowl- 

 edging man's dependence upon higher powers. 



Indeed, soberly considered, the notion that the heavenly bodies 

 controlled the laws of health, etc., possessed one noteworthy attribute, 

 in that it aided in establishing a belief. 



The acceptance of particularly mysterious agencies often rendered 

 efficacious such prescriptions, in consequence of the compulsion which 

 they opposed against human convenience and caprice in requiring ful- 

 fillment, thereby effecting a salutary influence which in themselves 

 they did not possess. 



We have yet to consider another phase of the calendar's being 

 which has a certain connection with the astrological predictions 

 namely, the " weather prophecies." Among the most cultured of the 

 ancients the weather was not an object of daily interest and regard to 

 the extent which it has become at the present day. In the regions of 

 Asia, Southern Europe, and Northern Africa, where the weather was 

 at first the most zealously studied, the daily as well as yearly changes 

 of temperature, direction of wind, cloudiness, and precipitation, have 

 a far greater regularity than in our climate. 



As Nature there also yields her fruits in greater plenitude, the 

 dependence of universal welfare on the weather phenomena is far less 

 painful and disturbing than in our latitudes. Egypt, only, formed an 

 exception, her harvests being largely dependent upon the overflowings 

 of the Nile ; but these would be endangered for only a comparatively 

 short portion of the year. 



We have already considered how the first calendars took note of 

 the great yearly changes in the weather from their connection with 

 the rising and setting of bright stars in the morning and evening twi- 

 light. As culture, however, slowly penetrated the more northerly 

 regions, which are the chief field of the unremitting conflict between 

 the warm equatorial air-currents and the cold polar currents, and which 

 sections are thereby subjected to incomparably greater changes and 

 uncertainties of weather, it was proved no longer wise to associate 

 such variations with the slow changes in the positions of the sun 

 among the stars. Hence the natural inclination to regard earthly as 

 controlled by celestial influences developed itself into a system of mani- 

 fold predictions concerning weather phenomena, and accordingly the 



