Mr. CnuM on tiu Infiumee of the Moon. 247 



2d. Does the Moon Influence Main ? 



This question has been investigated by Schubler in a course of 

 twenty-eight years' observations in different parts of Germany. His 

 results were published in 1830, and they seem to show that rather more 

 rain falls during the waxing moon than when it is waning ; and also 

 that a greater number of rainy days occur during the first half of the 

 moon's course than during the last. But I do not trouble the Society 

 with Schubler's tables. Being a mean result of mixed observations, 

 they do not bear upon the question in hand ; for, whatever change of 

 weather took place at one change of the moon might bo balanced by an 

 opposite change at the next — the popular belief acknowledging equally 

 a change from fair to foul and from foul to fair — I will only mention 

 that ho found five per cent, more rain to fall during the seven days 

 when the moon was nearest to the earth, than when at the most 

 distant part of its orbit Schubler's results, as I have said, decide 

 nothing as to changes of the moon producing changes of the weather ; 

 but they seem to show that some relation does exist between the moon 

 and our atmosphere. They are affected, however, by too many foreign 

 influences ; and are summed up from observations too little capable of 

 precision to entitle the deductions from them to rank among ascer- 

 tained facts. 



3d. Does the moon influence the winds ? 



The meteorological tables published in our monthly scientific jour- 

 nals, give the direction of the wind at a particular hour of each day. 

 Sucli tables, indeed, differ materially when made up a few miles from 

 each other ; and they mark the slightest local breeze equally witli the 

 most generally prevailing wind. No very important conclusion can 

 therefore be drawn from them; and yet we may expect, from the 

 balancing of the various other causes of change, that if the phases of 

 the moon influence at all the movements of the atmosphere, these 

 movements will be perceptible in summing up the results of a series of 

 years. If it cannot be perceived from such results that the winds 

 change more decidedly at new moons than on the other days of the 

 month, neither can it be noticed by an observer, whose only register 

 is his memory ; and it may reasonably bo presumed, that changes in 

 the other phenomena constituting weather, which are generally ac- 

 companied, if not regulated, by changes of the wind, are ^o incapable 

 of being traced to lunar periods. 



I have chosen, as most convenient for reduction, the register of the 

 winds kept at Chiswick, near London, and published in the Philoso- 

 phical Magazine. The state of the wind at one o'clock of each day is 

 that which is noted. In order that the amount of change from one 

 day to another may be stated in numbers, I Iiave marked as 1 a change 

 equal to one-eighth of the circle ; as, from N.to N.E., or from S.W. 

 to S. A change of two-eighths is marked 2 ; and the greatest change, 

 viz. from N. to S., or from S.E. to N.W. marked 4 — thus. 



