188 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



Other things being equal, than when they run one after the other in the 

 same general wake, is symbolized, in popular meteorological mythology, 

 (which is better and more truthful after all than most other forms of 

 mythology,) by the different positions of the horns of the moon. Myri- 

 ads of men in all races have observed the truth of this sign, in fact with- 

 out having the power of even suspecting its true philosophy and cause. 

 But still if any one should assume that in this given county or State, or 

 country, any particular drought, however appalling, would be broken up 

 by any such changes ui the relative position of the sun and moon, he 

 would assume what is wholly illogical, and might not prove true in any 

 single case, or in any series of single cases ; while still it might be true that, 

 taking the whole circuit of the globe in our latitude, more rain does 

 always and uniformly fall under the one condition of these heavenly 

 bodies than under the other ; and therefore that in general, on the great 

 scale, there is always everywhere more prospect and more rational hope 

 of rain under the one condition than under the other. For nothing is 

 better known than that our rains do not spread themselves in a uniform 

 belt, like a universal fog, over the whole circuit of the globe in a given 

 latitude, but that they fall in condensed masses and showers and local 

 storms, here and there ; even more likely, for some reason, to wholly skip 

 and pass over places of excessive drought than those of excessive inun- 

 dation. The scientific or other observation of single countries, therefore, 

 can effect nothing whatever in determining the existence or non-existence 

 of such a cause ; for the cause itself, in its own nature, affects simul- 

 taneously and alike the whole circuit of the globe, in the latitudes over 

 which these atmospheric wakes may chance to lie. 



We see, therefore, that nothing less than Prof. Maury's plan of obser- 

 vation, around the whole circuit at one and the same time, by the union 

 and co-operation of all nations, can do any thing whatever toward philo- 

 sophically determining this single point, or any other practical point of 

 like nature. For all such purposes, our observations are utterly worthless 

 till we make their circuit complete. They determine nothing whatever, 

 in all such regards, however accurate or useful in other respects. 



Take another instance : Nothing is more certain to my mind, than 

 that the general dryness of the fall months, and consequent retained heat 

 of wide areas of earth, is one of the primal causes which determine the 

 general course of our winter winds, and therefore the temperature of our 

 winters. It must be so, inevitably, unless our ultimate assumptions in all 

 material philosophy are themselves utterly baseless. 



I do not affirm that it is the sole cause, for I do not believe that it 

 is ; nor yet that it is the primal cause ; for I do not yet fully know even 

 that ; although I think that it is. Now this one simple cause has been 

 symbolized for ages in the same popular mythology of the weather, by 

 the height of the beaver dams, and houses ; the thickness or thinness of 

 husks and shucks on corn and vegetable products ; of feathers on water- 

 fowls, etc., etc., all of which depend primarily on the condition of the 

 water-fall and consequent heat and dryness, or wet and cold of the earth, 

 in the closing months of the year. But if a man should reason from the 



