THE MOON AND THE WEATHER. 483 



rector of the Canadian Meteorological Department, once told me that 

 he had very frequently noticed a tendency in the weather to change 

 and repeat itself every seven days. A similar seven-day periodicity 

 has been observed in the United States. The meteorological condi- 

 tions of a large continent, it must be remembered, are simpler than 

 those of our own little islands, and hence ii is possible that a cycle 

 almost completely masked here might disclose itself there. It is not 

 to be supposed that I am contending for a cycle due to the moon. I 

 only wish to point out that there is some evidence of the existence of 

 a seven-day weather period, which may sometimes happen to be coin- 

 cident with the lunar phases ; and if this be really so, it is not at all 

 Avonderf ul that our forefathers were led to infer a connection, or that 

 even "educated people" continue to put a certain amount of faith in 

 a rule so well founded. 



But pre-eminently tJie lunar cycle is that of eighteen and a half 

 years — the ancient Saros, or period of revolution of the lunar node. It 

 has been traced in sundry phenomena, including the amount of rainfall 

 and the recurrence of epidemic pestilences. The evidence, of course, 

 is extremely shaky, though scarcely more so than much of that adduced 

 in favor of the sun-spot cycle. The truth seems to be that in certain 

 lines of inquiry, if an investigator starts with a predetermined system 

 of any kind, statistics will bear him out, or can be made to bear 

 him out. 



In closing this hasty survey of a branch of mixed knowledge and 

 ignorance, science combined with superstition, I would repeat the ob- 

 servation with which I set out (and which I have now in a measure 

 justified), that it is unfair to stigmatize the whole moon-and-the- weather 

 theme as unworthy of serious treatment — as a mere surviving fragment 

 of astrology. There is a great deal of nonsense in it, more nonsense 

 than sense ; and if the two must sink or swim together, it would be 

 better to let the sense go than to preserve both. But why should they 

 be inseparable ? We have sifted a little grain out of much chaff before 

 now ; and there is this great gain in the result, that the sifted chaff is 

 chaff, obviously, demonstrably, and can not lay claim to a spurious 

 value in the eyes of the short-sighted by the admixture of a proportion 

 of the valued thing. There are weather wiseacres who know that 

 there is truth in some of their cherished lunar proverbs ; and the un- 

 conditional repudiation of every saying with moon in it by men of sci- 

 ence simply convinces these old fellows that the men of science do not 

 understand what they are talking about, and makes them cling all the 

 more vigorously to their ill-used beliefs. If we were to set about it 

 in a different way, and to accept the sayings that science can sanction, 

 and only repudiate the rest, we would have a better chance of success 

 in combating this irrepressible error. For it is the truth in the error 

 that makes it irrepressible. — LonrjmarCs Magazine. 



