58 Transactions of the Royal Canadian Institute 



In order to realize the necessity for training the mind of the student' 

 of research in the habits of accurate observation, strict recording and 

 careful deduction, it may be well to recall the proneness of the human 

 mind to error in the absence of such habits. A single example may 

 sufifice. It will be generally conceded that sailors, as a class, are very 

 keen of sense, practical in judgment, and much dependent upon the 

 weather for the success and comfort of their daily work at sea. Sailors, as 

 a class, are also, by general admission, at least as intelligent as any other 

 set of men in a community. In the wjriter's opinion, they are above the 

 average in this respect. It would, therefore, be naturally supposed that 

 their general opinions concerning the weather, and changes of weather, 

 would be particularly reliable. It was formerly a very prevalent belief 

 among sailors, both officers and men, that the moon had an efifect on 

 the weather, or that a change in the phase of the moon either brought 

 about or attended a change in the weather. Since the quarter changes 

 in the moon's phase occur about 50 times a year, a sailor who had spent 

 forty years at sea, would have been in a position to witness some 2,000 

 such changes, and it might be supposed that wjith this long series of 

 opportunities for verifying the proposition he would speedily arrive 

 at a correct conclusion in the matter. W. Hutchinson says, however, in 

 his "Treatise on Practical Seamanship" (i), published in England in 

 the year 1777, in opposing this moon theory: 



"That these changes of the weather and winds in no way depend 

 upon the situation of phases of the moon, or the sun at the equinoxes, 

 as they are too generally thought to do in this climate." 

 As soon as the statistical science of meteorology had sufficiently far 

 advanced to show, as we all now recognize, that storms are progressive 

 disturbances, advancing along a curved path at a rate which is often 

 fairly uniform, at say about 500 kilometers a day, it would become fairly 

 evident that a change in the moon's phase, which is nearly instantaneous 

 all over the world, could not be the cause of a progressive change in 

 the weather. Moreover, the meteorologists, after diligent statistical 

 search, have failed to find any appreciable connection between the 

 weather and the moon's phases or position in her orbit. The belief 

 probably lost its hold on the minds of the scientifically trained officers, 

 and does not seem to have been sustained in any standard work on either 

 meteorology or seamanship. It continued, however, to hold a place 

 among the rank and file of the mariners. Luce's "Seamanship" (2), 

 quoting Rear-Admiral Goldsborough in 1877, says: 



"Some persons attribute influence to the moon in respect of 

 weather, and say a change may be expected within a few days of 

 the moon's phases. But the intervals between one and another 



