METEOROLOGY. 49 



cal phenomena is known whose period coincides in so remarkable a 

 manner with either of these, as they do with each other. This circum- 

 stance may be entirely accidental ; but it is not probable that "it is so ; 

 for in physics such coincidences, after due investigation, are always 

 found to result from a more or less intimate relationship, such as a com- 

 mon cause, or as one being the cause and the other the effect. 



2. The opinion, that the moon in its diflerent positions in reference 

 to the earth and sun may be the cause of those modifications of the 

 condition of the atmosphere which give rise to cloud, rain, snow, and 

 fair weather, is not new. The idea is extensively prevalent in the 

 community that the changes of the weather are produced directly or in- 

 directly by the lunar influence. Hence such changes arc often confi- 

 dently looked for at the times of new and full moon, and at its first and 

 last quarters. And further, at the times of new and full moon, but par- 

 ticularly the latter, frosts and cold weather are almost uniformly expe- 

 rienced in our latitude, except perhaps during several of the summer 

 months. During the last summer the times of full moon were all cool 

 and bracing, and the nights clear and brilliant. Why Mis should be so, 

 may perhaps at some convenient time be considered. 



3. But it has been objected by some that, as the weather rarely ever 

 changes at the precise time wlicn the moon is new or full, or at the 

 quadratures, or at the octants, but generally a day or a day and a half 

 earlier or later, the latter can have very little influence over the former. 

 Great stress has been laid upon this objection ; and it has been regarded 

 by those, who have entertained it, as at once deciding the question in 

 their favor. At this point we might aid them by stating a second objec- 

 tion, much more plausible, and therefore, more weighty than the one just 

 named. It is known, that the change from clear to cloud and vice versa, 

 happens at difl^erent times in diflerent places on the same meridian. The 

 careful study of meteorology, and the multiplication of observations have 

 moreover proved that it occurs in low always sooner than in high lati- 

 tudes, and that it is regularly progressive from the tropics towards the 

 north, and north of east in the northern, and towards the south and 

 south of east in the southern hemisphere. Its occurrence in the lower 

 latitudes is always several days earlier than in the higher. This, it 

 might be said, does not look much like an efiect of the lunar action, 

 which ought to be exerted nearly at the same time at all places upon 

 the same meridian, and always most powerfully in the latitude corre- 

 sponding to its declination. 



These objections, and others of a similar character which might be 

 urged, though plausible, do not however, in our opinion, mililute agaia.st 

 7 - ' ! 



