238 



of different years. The remote cause of this difference has still to 

 be ascertained ; and, when detected, will probably be found to 

 originate in cosmical and terrestrial influences combined, the 

 latter more or less determined, in north temperate latitudes, by 

 the conditions of the ice in the Polar regions. 



And till the science of meteorology is sufficiently advanced to 

 give us an understanding on this subject, all prognostications of 

 weather to come, beyond a few days in advance, must be very 

 uncertain. We may form some idea of what is likely to occur, 

 from the comparison of a particular season with the seasons of 

 former years ; but any inferences drawn from their similarity or 

 dissimilarity as regards antecedent conditions of weather, can 

 assure us of nothing beyond what is probable. The end may not 

 justify our expectations. We know not what concealed agencies 

 may be at work to disturb all our calculations, however thought- 

 fully conceived, and to falsify our predictions, however confident 

 we may feel of their trustworthiness. 



■ In truth, we have a signal instance of such rash prophecying in 

 Mr. Lowe, the distinguished Nottingham observer in the joint 

 sciences of astronomy and meteorology, who hazarded a prediction, 

 in a letter to the editor of the Times, in May last, * that " a 

 period of drought was then apparently at hand, and that the 

 summer of 1879 might be expected to be very similar to that of 

 1868;" the late summer having, as every one knows, proved to 

 be one of the coldest and wettest on record. May we not, in 

 conclusion, gather wisdom from this specimen of wwwisdom in one 

 whom we might have accounted as among the best able to give 

 an opinion in such matters. 



• Headed, "The Cycle of the Seasons." 



