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I fear I have somewhat trespassed on your patience even on 
such a subject as the weather. Dr. Johnson has explained to us 
the philosophy of the interest attaching to it in these regions, and 
I will quote his words in my defence. ‘‘An Englishman’s notice 
of the weather,” he says, ‘‘is the natural consequence of changing 
skies and uncertain seasons. In many parts of the world wet 
weather and dry are regularly expected at certain periods; but 
in our island every man goes to sleep unable to guess whether he 
shall behold in the morning a bright or cloudy atmosphere— 
whether his rest shall be lulled by a shower, or broken by a tempest. 
We therefore rejoice mutually at good weather, as an escape from 
something that we feared ; and mutually complain of bad as the 
loss of something which we hoped. Such is the reason of our 
practice, and who shall treat it with contempt? . . The weather 
is a noble and an interesting subject: it is the present state of the 
skies and of the earth, on which plenty and famine are suspended, 
on which millions depend for the necessaries of life.” It may be 
that since Dr. Johnson’s time we have taken some steps in advance 
towards forecasting these ‘‘changeable skies and uncertain seasons.” 
“It cannot be disputed,” wrote a man of science long ago, “that 
all the changes which happen in the mass of our atmosphere, 
involved, capricious, and irregular as they may appear, are yet the 
necessary result of principles as fixed, and perhaps as simple, as 
those which direct the revolution of the solar system.” Let us 
hope they may one day be discovered. The progress of science 
in other directions is full of promise and of hope. Here every- 
thing comes to him who waits—and in this case observes. 
If any one wishes to take his part as an observer, I am sure he 
will find every encouragement from Mr. Marriott, the active 
secretary of the Meteorological Society. One of his stations in 
this neighbourhood—that at Stapleton—is about, he told me the 
other day, to be discontinued ; and he would, I am sure, be glad 
if some one would undertake to fill the gap. I hope you will not 
be discouraged by the fact that, even of to-morrow I dare not 
prophecy. Even in a matter of such limited extent, I fear 
before I prophecy I like to know—but I sincerely wish that you 
