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I fancy it is popularly assumed that every one who dabbles in 
meteorology is also something of a seer ; that with the purchase of 
a rain-gauge he also assumes the prophet’s garb. This is, I fear, 
a flattering misconception of our powers. Ordinary meteorology, 
like political meteorology, is not a science of accurate and unerring 
forecasts. It has indeed made some advance since 1846, when 
Arago declared that “never, whatever may be the progress of 
science, will scientific men of good repute, and careful of their 
reputation, venture to predict the weather ;” but the advance has 
been a limited one. It is possible now, in many cases, to forecast 
with a fair amount of accuracy the weather of one day from 
conditions known to have prevailed on the preceding day ; and 
this power it may reasonably be hoped will be extended as years 
goon. But for any approach to a forecast of the character of the 
coming season, or even the coming month, still more for any 
perception of those cycles of seasons which recur, though we may 
not say that they are beyond the range of scientific possibility, as 
yet at any rate we look in vain. Meteorology remains a science 
in the stage of observation. ‘Those who follow it are like those of 
whom Burke speaks, as lights in the stern of a vessel, illumining 
only the course over which it has passed. Their aim is to collect 
as wide a series of observations as they can, in the belief that some 
day there will come, as has been said, “the gifted mind, trained 
into the habit of broad generalisation, who shall bring together out 
of the vast accumulation of observations which we shall place in 
his hands, the established facts which they hold buried, and from 
them draw those philosophical deductions which are required to 
advance meteorology to a science but little inferior in exactness to 
astronomy, with which it is so closely allied.” In the meantime 
we must be content to be observers, and from our observations 
something, at all events, may be gathered. The doctrine of aver- 
ages at least holds true, and we usually find that the excess or 
defect of one season—whether in rain or heat or cold—is corrected 
by something corresponding in that which follows it. We find, 
too, that there is in them some basis for that popular meteorology 
which is enshrined in the trite sayings and rhymes of the common 
