re/pecling Changes of Weather. 121 



From observations made at Padua on this Subject, during 

 the coure of fiftv years, he at length found that good and 

 bad weather have been always determined by certain fitua- 

 tions of the moon ; and this circumftance furnifhed him the 

 means of foretelling, with fome degree of certainty, the ftate 

 of the atmofphere by the fituation of that luminary deduced 

 from aftronomical calculations. He diftinguiihes ten fitua- 

 tions of the moon, each of which is capable of producing a 

 fenfible effect on our atmofphere ; and, in order to compre- 

 hend thefe, it muft be obferved, that the motion of the moon 

 has three different relations, from which there arife the fame 

 number of revolutions, and that each of thefe has a parti- 

 cular duration, and at the fame time certain fituations, as 

 expreffed in the following table : 



REVOLUTIONS. SITUATIONS OF THEMOON. 



1. Synodical, in regard to New moon 

 the fun ; continues 29 days Firft quarter 

 12 hours 44 minutes. Full moon 



Laft quarter 



2. Anomalijlic , in regard 



tothe moon's courfe; con- Apogeum 



tinues 27 days 13 hours Perigeum 



43 minutes, 



3. Periodical, in regard Afcending equinoxes * 

 to the moon's palling the Northern luniflicesf 

 equator; continues 27 days Defcending equinoxes 

 7 hours 43 minutes. Southern luniftices 



* The two pafftges of the moon over the equator are called by M. To- 

 aldo, one the afcending, and the other the defcending equinox. Edit. 



f The two luniftices, as M. de la Lande has called them, arc : ift, the 

 meal luwflice, wl en the moon approaches as near as (he can in each Ju- 

 ration to our zenith : *d, the aujlral lunijlice, when flic is at the grcateft 

 diftancc from it. Euit. 



The 



