Predictions of the Weather. Ill 



shaped fish, which, from the description given, I imagined to 

 be a mermaid. On reaching the hut, I found two, both 

 females : the largest was cut up ; the natives in the act of 

 preparing it for a meal. Of the other, the following is a 

 brief description : — Length, about 5 ft. ; breadth across the 

 shoulders, about 14 in. ; the head something like that of a 

 porpoise, and without hair, united with the body by a short 

 neck. From the shoulders downwards the shape was exactly 

 the same as represented in the engravings of the mermaid, 

 with the exception of the arms. Instead of hands, they ter- 

 minate the same as a turtle's fin, and have no joints except at 

 the shoulders. The breasts were perfectly feminine, and the 

 arms folded across as if to protect them. The skin was thick, 

 of a dun colour, and the surface of it quite smooth. 



" The natives inform me that this animal, when seen, 

 always appears erect, with the head and shoulders above 

 water, and the arms in the same position as when I saw 

 them.* — Brig Tom Cod, A. N. Herapath, Commander" 



Mr. Murphy's Predictions of the Weather. — Having, in the 

 report of the proceedings of the Meteorological Society for 

 December, 1836, stated Mr. Murphy's anticipated state of the 

 weather for the present month (January, 1837), which will 

 appear to most, or all, of your readers to have been a com- 

 plete failure, and thereby calculated to reflect discredit on 

 meteorologists, I think it but justice to Mr. Murphy to state 

 that he has sent another paper to the Meteorological Society, 

 prior to the last meeting on the 9th inst., explaining the error 

 into which he had fallen with regard to the dates not coin- 

 ciding with the meteorological facts. He accounts for his 

 error in anticipating the first interval of frost to have set in 

 about fifteen days, or half a lunar circle, sooner than he had 

 expected ; or that the frost commenced at the full moon, or on 

 the night of December 23., instead of the period of new 

 moon, or the night of January 5. The greatest cold, there- 

 fore, occurred in the night of the 1st January f (the second 

 quadrature of the moon being only the day preceding, viz. 

 Dec. 31.), immediately preceding the thaw, which com- 

 menced January 2. Whereas, if these predictions had been 

 made to correspond with the facts so accurately as they have 

 done, dates and all, then all would have been ready to have 

 pronounced Mr. Murphy's a lucky hit. But, seeing that he is 

 out in dates only, and not in facts, I take it for granted that 



* This animal is evidently the Manatus senegalensis Desm. t which was 

 well described by Adanson under the name of Lamantin. — Ed. 



f The minimum cold for the year 1836 occurred in the night of Jan, 

 1. j a remarkable coincidence. 



