246 Mb, Crum <m the Influence of the Moon, 



day of a new moon, and none at all on the day of the full. If we 

 take the latitude of three days before and three days after every quarter, 

 which the popular idea allows, and thus increase the number of the 

 influential days, more changes of the weather would of course occur 

 on such days, but still only the proportion duo to that increase of 

 number. 



I might here adduce the opposite results of Toaldo of Padua, 

 obtained by computation from a course of fifty years' observations by 

 the Marquis Poleni, and showing that many more changes occurred at 

 the new and full moon, than at the first and last quarter ; but they 

 seem to be of no value, for it turns out that, assuming the moon's 

 influence to be greatest at the change and the full, Toaldo spread these 

 periods over three days, including the day before and the day after, 

 and then compared the changes of weather that occurred on all the 

 three days with those of the single days on which the quarters fell. 

 Toaldo uses an extraordinary argument to enforce his conclusions. 

 " Every one," he says, *' is aware from his own experience, that the 

 nails and hair grow much more quickly when cut during the increase 

 of the moon than when cut during the wane." 



In opposition to Toaldo, there are twenty-five years of observations 

 of the different phases of the moon, by Pilgram of Vienna, which give 

 as their result : — 



58 Changes of weather on the days of New moon. 

 63 — on those of the Full moon. 



63 — at the Quarters. 



The difference is no doubt occasioned by the difficulty of deciding what 

 constitutes a change of weather in the sense understood by Pilgram. 

 Were it otherwise these results would prove seven or eight per cent, 

 fewer changes of the weather at the change of the moon than at any 

 other period of the lunation — a conclusion at which no one has ever 

 arrived and which is altogether improbable. 



Olbers, the celebrated discoverer of Pallas and Vesta, declares 

 that the experience of many years has convinced him that at least in 

 the climate of Bremen the rules of Toaldo are utterly false. " We 

 shall be convinced," he adds, "of the smallness of the moon's influence, 

 if we reflect that weather of the most opposite kind occurs in different 

 parts of the world at the same moment, and consequently with the 

 same lunar phase. This is most readily observed during an eclipse 

 when accounts of the weather arrrive from many different quarters. 

 The remarks, for example, that were made during the solar eclipse of 

 the 18th November, 1816, have been collected in this way, and furnish 

 a singular mixture of good and bad weather spread on that day over 

 a great part of Europe." Olbers quotes also the observations of Pro- 

 fessor Brandos as furnishing results to the same effect. ^ 



