546 Prognostications of the Weather. 



close of last year, a gentleman named Mr. Patrick Murphy 

 astonished the members of the Meteorological Society, by 

 publicly announcing, at a meeting of that body, that he was 

 so deeply read in the laws which govern aerial phenomena, as 

 to be able to lay down in black and white the various changes of 

 the weather, temperature, &c, in the order, and at the exact 

 periods, during which these several variations would take 

 place for the space of one prospective year. He judged it, 

 however, expedient to commence operations by trying his 

 hand upon only one month at a time; and he accordingly 

 communicated the order of meteorological events for the then 

 forth-coming January to the daily papers and scientific 

 journals, that the public generally might be apprised on what 

 particular days it would be unsafe to venture abroad without 

 a due supply of great coats and umbrellas. Unfortunately, 

 however, the ruling powers did not sanction Mr. Murphy's 

 arrangement of hot and cold, wet and drought; and, as 

 though determined to expose the utter fallacy of his prognos- 

 tications, the very night on which, by Mr. Murphy's calcu- 

 lation, the frost should have been most intense, turned out 

 the mildest in the whole month ; every one of his predictions, 

 without exception, being nullified in a similar manner. The 

 secretary of the Meteorological Society, who appears to 

 have acted upon the impression that Mr. Murphy's position 

 among meteorologists was akin to that of Lyell or Sedgewick 

 among the cultivators of geology, became alarmed for the 

 effect which this unfortunate occurrence might have upon 

 the progress of the science at large ; and, with a view of 

 allaying the excitement, and counteracting the injurious re- 

 sults consequent upon Mr. Murphy's mishap, addressed an 

 explanatory letter to the editor of the Magazine of Natural 

 History >, which will be found in the Number for February, 

 1837. The writer there exhorts meteorologists not to be 

 discouraged in consequence of what he terms Mr. Murphy's 

 " unlucky hit," ingeniously observing that, although the frost, 

 rain, and wind, did not come on those particular days on 

 which they ought to have arrived, yet, as all three were 

 present during the month of January, it was clear that Mr. 

 Murphy was perfectly right as to " facts," his miscalculations 

 being merely with regard to " dates." 



Whatever might have been the effect upon the minds of the 

 public, Mr. Murphy, with the true spirit of a philosopher, was 

 determined not to be disconcerted, or induced to mistrust the 

 soundness of his theory, from the circumstance of one month's 

 failure in its practical operation ; and, having taken the best part 

 of a year to revise his calculating machine, he is now again before 



