104 



DISCOVERY 



en. 



candle-power lamp at 47 yards' distance ; so that the 

 heat received from the whole of the stars is far too small 

 to have any observable influence upon the atmospheric 

 movements which produce changes of weather. 

 ^ As regards heating effect, the planets are in the same 

 case as the stars. From the planet Jupiter, the heat 

 received is nearly five times more intense than from 

 the star Vega, but even that is next to nothing, and is 

 altogether negligible in comparison with solar heat. It 

 is, therefore, not remarkable that no amount of juggling 

 with planetary conjunctions and oppositions has ever 

 revealed a combination of the slightest service in weather 

 prediction. It is possible, of course, that rays of an 

 undiscovered kind are received from certain celestial 

 bodies, and that these are operative in producing 

 weather changes, but the fact remains that no relation- 

 ship of practical value has been made out between the 

 movements apparent or real of the moon, stars, or 

 planets and the weather of any part of the earth. 



Animals depend so much upon weather for their supply 

 of food, that their sensitiveness to weather changes, 

 which may deprive some of them of a meal, is not 

 strange. It is unnecessary to assume that they have any 

 special sense in this respect any prophetic instinct that 

 enables them to foretell the character of coming seasons. 

 They may be affected by atmospheric conditions which 

 are not detected by human nature in general, and they 

 respond to these conditions by their actions, but these 

 signs only indicate the weather to be expected in the 

 immediate future. Sufficient for living creatures to 

 know what the proximate weather will be, and their 

 prescience goes no farther than that, as is shown by the 

 myriads of birds and other animals that are destroyed 

 every year by severe storms and untoward changes. 



