THE MOON AND TEE WEATHER. 



479 



examination of weather registers kept by his grandfather, his father, 

 and himself, extending ov'er nearly eighty years, that nineteen times 

 out of twenty a new moon on Saturday was followed by twenty days 

 of rain and wind. It is not many weather sayings that enjoy the sup- 

 porting testimony of a sober scientific investigation, and that circum- 

 stance, together with the general acceptance in which the saying is 

 held, entitles it to special consideration. 



Could we reduce the occurence of a Saturday moon to any form of 

 periodicity — that is to say, were the accident of the new moon falling 

 on a Saturday to recur at regular intervals — we should have some 

 ground for at least provisionally admitting the truth of the rule, since 

 we know that many weather phenomena are roughly periodical (though 

 the periodicity is often completely masked by the disturbing operation 

 of local influences), and it might so happen that this weather period co- 

 incided with that of the Saturday moon. The " cold snaps " in May> 

 for example, recur periodically ; and a cause for the phenomenon has 

 been found in the passage of dense meteor flights between the sun and 

 the earth, the meteors intercepting a portion of his heat. But the 

 Saturday moon is not exactly periodical. In 1881 not a single new 

 moon fell on a Saturday. In 1883 there were three conjunctions so 

 distinguished. This year there are two. What sort of weather period 

 can we imagine guilty of such eccentricities ? Of course, had the adage 

 referred to a particular Saturday moon it would have been difl'erent. 

 The new moon falls on the same day again after a lapse of about nine- 

 teen years (a circumstance that gave rise to the Metonic cycle), and the 

 rule would then have meant that a period of wet and windy weather oc- 

 curred at a certain season every nineteen years — a notion in striking 

 accordance with a favorite cycle of the cycle hunters. No such in- 

 terpretation is possible, however, and we are obliged to include this 

 much-respected saying in the category of idle superstitions. 



We come now to the more edifying class of lunar weather notions 

 — those that have a real physical basis. And it may not be out of 

 place to repeat here that the writers who so emphatically and unre- 

 servedly denounce the moon and weather idea a vulgar superstition 

 overstep the limits of scientific truth. So far as any influence of the 

 kind we have been considering is concerned, they are quite right. The 

 moon exerts no influence upon our atmosphere strong enough, by com- 

 parison with the other influences at work, to produce a marked cor- 

 respondence between the lunar and atmospheric phenomena. Of that 

 we are certain. Let us, therefore, belabor the false doctrine upon 

 which the preceding and many similar notions are founded with all our 

 might. But because the moon certainly is not a dominant factor in 

 our weather, it does not follow that we are justified in denying to it an 

 influence of any kind. And the results of sundry investigations have 

 been such as to render it prudent to regard the existence of some phys- 

 ical connection between the two as at least an open question. Atmos- 



