STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. lOT 



True we have no such science as Meteorology to teach. What passes 

 for such now is a misnomer, a mere incongruous mass of crude and con- 

 flicting hypotheses, that have as much resemblance to Meteorology as 

 vegetable oysters have to real oysters. We are, however, not entirely 

 ignorant in this branch of knowledge, for we know some I'acts, and are 

 able to interpret tolerably well their meaning. If we stick to the facts, 

 and let the speculations of theorizers severely alone, science will rapidly 

 grow upon us. It must be confessed that Meteorology is a dark subject, 

 but we will endeavor to let some light into it ; not by new theories and 

 speculations, but by presenting the most conspicuous facts, and then 

 drawing a few general and far reaching deductions, which inevitably fol- 

 low from these facts. These will give only an imperfect outline of the sci- 

 ence, for time does not permit me to present it in its fullness, symmetry, 

 beauty and simplicity. 



It matters not who makes a prediction of the weather, be he ignorant 

 or intelligent, if the prediction is analyzed, the fundamental element upon 

 which it is based is always found to be the wind, its force and direction. 

 Now who can tell what wind is? It will be answered : why, it is air in 

 motion. True, but please tell me what put the air in motion ? I well 

 know what philosophy, falsely so called, says about the motive power, but 

 neither I nor you are bound to renounce our individual judgment in def- 

 erence to the dictum of philosophy, unless ihert is an array of facts, laws 

 and causes, so presented as to make that dictum an irresistible inference 

 or deduction, and consequently a self-evident truth. 



The wind hypothesis of philosophy is any thing but a self-evident 

 truth, and is contravened by so many focts that it is not even a legitimate 

 deduction from the assumption itself. Philosophy says the causes of 

 wind are the rotary motion of the earth on its axis, and local rarification 

 of the air by heat. That is, wind is i)roduced sometimes by one cause 

 and sometimes by another. To this we demur; for if there is not a uni- 

 form relation between cause and effect, then the same effect may be owing 

 to different causes. Consequently a knowledge of Nature's economy 

 becomes an impossibility; since instead of our task being confined to 

 tracing an effect to a single and uniform cause, which, when once under- 

 stood will in all times and ])laces stand as the sole and universal cause of 

 a given effect, we would have an unlimited number of causes to trace up; 

 hence certain and complete knowledge of the physical world would be 

 unattainable. 



We further demur to this hypothesis, because it implies a contradic- 

 tion which makes it absurd, in this : that when air has passed the ca/»/ 

 belts of the tropics it still out-travels the earth, because of the velocity 

 acquired from the rotary motion of the earth while within the tropics. A 

 calm is air without motion ; yet this liypothesis assumes that air issuing 

 out of a calm has the same motion it had before it became calm. O con- 

 sistency, thou art a jewel ! 



Turning from the visionary and baseless speculations of theorists to 

 nature herself, a.s the instructor, and interpreter of her own laws, what 

 does she say? Didactically nothing; but smiling with radiant beauty, 



