32 NATURE STUDY. 



is sure to announce in the most public way, "I told you 

 so." If no section gets his weather, he says nothing and 

 everybody else forgets what he predicted. 



The latest claimant for prophetic honors is a Mr. 

 Wightman who kindly announced at the beginning of the 

 3'ear what weather we might expect for the following twelve 

 months. His predictions were somewhat general, remind- 

 ing one of the standard almanacs that usually spread out 

 over the greater part of a winter month the announcement 

 that "About this time we may expect a storm." Such 

 prophecies are usually prosy. Mr. Wightman is poetic. 

 Witness the opening of the following quotation from his 

 prediction for the period from the middle of May till the 

 end of June : 



Pattering raindrops will threaten a storm, as black masses of 

 hurrying clouds go chasing each other across the sky. Increasing 

 warmth will ripen the blossoms into laughing fruit, and clear, lam- 

 bent sunshine will bring to all created beings a sense of new crea- 

 tion, in the glad, new life of spring. Minor storms 20th and 21st; 

 as these days begin to dawn, if the sun appears above a broad cir- 

 cle of dark cloud it will foretell one of those burning spells which 

 sometimes precede the heat of summer. Rich, balmy air, with in- 

 creasing warmth, will follow, up to new moon on 26th, when the 

 last regular storm period, 26th to 29th, will bring darkening skies 

 and threatening thunderstorms. 



June. 



The magnetic and electrical conditions prevailing last days of 

 May will continue through the greater part of this month, and as- 

 sure an abundance of rain. Minor storms, ist and 2d, will be ex- 

 cited by Venus ; central on 3d. Through the month hot, sticky 

 weather will predominate, the atmosphere surcharged with moist- 

 ure and hanging close to the earth, and so muggy " a man must do 

 his work twice to get it done." There will be extreme heat, turn- 

 ing suddenly to imseasonable cold. The first regular storm period, 

 6th to 9th, will witness large masses of clouds rolling over the face 

 of the sky, distant lightning portending storms, and as they appear 

 and increase, the flashes will succeed one another more rapidly, 

 the thunder growl more loudly, and the wind howl, as the precur- 



