10 METEOROLOGY. 



clearly and satisfactorily removed. Under these circumstances, we are 

 excited to some degree of surprise, that at the present day, in any 

 quarter, astrology, (a fiction suited only to the darkness of the middle 

 ages,) should be seriously entertained and studied : previous to the era 

 of Bacon, speculations and fancies in which even the profound 

 mathematician Kepler indulged may easily be excused. " The love 

 of the marvellous" which furnishes an indulgence to the mind 

 unaccustomed to rigorous scrutiny and searching investigation, was 

 then fed by conflicting theories and the great uncertainty regarding 

 stellar motions and design; the now complete state of physical 

 astronomy, however, which leaves no planetary or lunar motion unex- 

 plained or unaccounted for, and which exhibits a perfection of design 

 at once making provision for every variety of position and distance as 

 maybe clearly and mathematically shown, and quite irrespective, indeed 

 contradictory of the fanciful configurations of the astrologer, when pro- 

 perly viewed, renders absurd any theory merely arbitrary, of a subordi- 

 nate and mysterious influence whether exerted over the weather, indi- 

 viduals or nations. Such voluntary theories are dependant chiefly on a 

 latent predisposition which leads the uninfonned to reverence mysterious, 

 albeit, often incongruous predictions, and to yield credence to what- 

 ever savours of that sort of knowledge of futurity which true philo- 

 sophy rejects, and which, there is abundant evidence to show, the 

 arrangements of the great Author of nature entirely preclude. 



More particularly to notice that branch of astrology which connects 

 itself with atmospherical phenomena : since the time of Kepler (to 

 whom allusion has been made, and who, notwithstanding his discovery 

 of principles which lie near the foundation of all physical astronomy, 

 wasted much valuable time in fanciful imaginative conjectures) no 

 name of astronomical eminence is to be found associated with occult 

 planetary predictions. 



It is known that the immediate agency so aflfecting the atmosphere 

 as to produce changes of weather is a variation in temperature : the 

 fundamental conditions of the evaporation of moisture from the earth's 

 surface and its re-condensation in the atmosphere are essentially 

 dependant on such variations for their fulfilment, and it may be 

 remarked in passing, that the unseen but beautiful operations of natiu-e 

 are in no case more interesting than under the circumstances of the 

 reciprocal aclion of evaporation and condensation. The atmosphere 



