STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 187 



MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 



CONTRIBUTED BY MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY FOR PUBLICATION. 



METEOROLOGY. 



BY PROF. J. IJ. TURNF.R, OF JACKSONVILLE, ILL. 



Probably but very few will contend that we as yet have any practical 

 science of Meteorology. But, so far as I am aware, nearly all that has 

 been done to reduce this subject to practice, has been done by our own 

 countrymen. Professor Loomis has made a general exhibition of most of 

 its known isolated facts ; Mr. l>utler has given us one or two more prac- 

 tical books on the subject; while Prof. Maury, in my humble judgment, 

 has pointed out to us and to the world, the only way in which it will be 

 possible for us, even to make out any thing that even looks like a true 

 science of Meteorology. Our corps of observers have made out regular 

 reports of the indications of the thermometer, barometer, rain gauge, etc., 

 etc., which have evolved items of interest respecting our own continent, 

 sufficient at least to confirm the hope that a science of Meteorology is at 

 last both practical, and, to the commercial, agricultural and sea-faring 

 world, in the highest degree useful. The only new work from abroad, of 

 a practical kind, of which I have any notice, is Camille Flamarion's trea- 

 tise on the atmosphere. 



Outside of these, and kindred laudable efforts, the current heirloom 

 signs or symbols of Indians, trappers, sailors and farmers, are still the 

 best indications of the course of the seasons we as yet have. 



In a former paper, read before the Industrial University, in Cham- 

 paign, and published in their last report, I endeavored to show the real 

 coincidence of many of these popular signs or symbols, when truly inter- 

 preted with all our assumed and well known scientific facts ; and also 

 suggested one or two additional signs of the weather. 



In that paper I attempted to go over so much ground, in so brief a 

 space, that it was hardly possible that it should not have been, at various 

 points, more or less misunderstood and misai^plied by the reader. I will 

 select one or two points as an illustration both of the liability of misappre- 

 hension and misapplication of principles in such cases, and to show what 

 we now most need to do to correct all such errors both of belief and of 

 practice. 



The tendency of the double tidal atmospheric wave and wake of the 

 sun and the moon when they run wide apart in their course through the 

 heavens, to produce, by the excessive agitation of the air, more rain, all 



