180 NATURE NEAR LONDON. 



will happen. Where there was only the indefinite 

 violet before, the most intense gaze into which could 

 discover nothing, suddenly, as if at that moment 

 born, the point of light arrives. 



So glorious is the night that not all London, with 

 its glare and smoke, can smother the sky; in the 

 midst of the gas, and the roar and the driving crowd, 

 look up from the pavement, and there, straight above, 

 are the calm stars. I never forget them, not even in 

 the restless Strand ; they face one coming down the 

 hill of the Haymarket ; in Trafalgar Square, looking 

 towards the high dark structure of the House at 

 Westminster, the clear bright steel silver of the planet 

 Jupiter shines unwearied, without sparkle or flicker. 



Apart from the grand atmospheric changes caused 

 by a storm wave from the Atlantic, or an anti-cyclone, 

 London produces its own sky. Put a shepherd on St. 

 Paul's, allow him three months to get accustomed 

 to the local appearances and the deceptive smoke 

 clouds, and he would then tell what the weather of 

 the day was going to be far more efficiently than the 

 very best instrument ever yet invented. He would 

 not always be right ,* but he would predict the local 

 London weather with far more accuracy than any one 

 reading the returns from the barometers at Valentia, 

 Stornaway, Brest, or Christiansand. 



The reason is this the barometer foretells the cloud 

 in the sky, but cannot tell where it will burst. The 

 practised eye can judge with very considerable 

 accuracy where the discharge will take place. Some 

 idea of what the local weather of London will be 

 for the next few hours may often be obtained by 



