476 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



To the former class belongs the idea, in its various forms, of a 

 direct lunar influence ; and I would begin with that most ubiquitous 

 — and apparently everlasting as well — of all popular absurdities, the 

 table known as " Herschel's Weather Table." How it ever came to 

 be associated with the name of the greatest of English astronomers is 

 a mystery. I once put the question in " Notes and Queries," where 

 the obscurest of litei'ary enigmas are often solved, but to no purpose. 

 Whatever the explanation may be, the table is certainly weighted with 

 Herschel's great authority, and to this day we find it in nearly all the 

 almanacs, and even in some less ephemeral publications, gravely quoted 

 as the embodiment of scientific truth. It is not necessary to take up 

 space with the whole table, as it is only too well known, and can be 

 seen in almost any almanac. It states that if the moon changes, or 

 becomes full, or enters her first or third quarter between noon and two 

 in the afternoon, the "resulting weather" (that is, I presume, the 

 weather during the ensuing week, or until a new change inaugurates 

 a new state of things) will be, in summer, "very rainy," and in winter 

 " snow and rain." If the change of moon takes place between two 

 and four in the afternoon, the resulting weather will be "changeable" 

 in summer (a pretty safe prediction in this climate), and "fair and 

 mild" in winter. And so on for the whole twenty-four hours. Now, 

 it will be observed that the lunar influence assumed here is of an occult 

 nature. There is no pretense of physical agency in the matter. The 

 weather will be such and such, not because the moon's reflection of 

 light is greater or smaller, nor because her radiation of heat is more 

 or less, nor because her position with respect to the earth is nearer or 

 farther away, but simply because she " changes " between certain ar- 

 bitrary hours. What virtue there can be in the moon's " change " is 

 hard indeed to see. The principle involved must be an astrological 

 one, for in reality the moon is gradually, if imperceptibly, " chang- 

 ing " during every moment of her increase from new to full, and her 

 decrease from full to new again, the quarters being only stages in the 

 process specially marked for the sake of convenience. There is pre- 

 cisely the same degree of visible difference between a three-days'-old 

 moon and a tcn-days'-old one as there is between a new moon and a 

 moon in her first quarter ; but in the former case (so we are asked to 

 believe) the difference is impotent to rule the weather because it does 

 not coincide with the conventional "change." To look at the matter 

 in another way, it will be noticed that the table provides for a change 

 occurring at any hour in the twenty-four, and, as the moon can not 

 escape the necessity of changing sometimes, it follows that the weather 

 for the year — and not only for the year, but for as long as the sun, 

 earth, and moon retain their relative position and motions — is reduci- 

 ble to a cut-and-dry order ; such an order, no doubt, as the compilers 

 of Zadkiel's, Orion's, and the Belfast Almanacs assume. Need the 

 British public be assured that no such convenient orderliness in our 



