PREFACE. xi 



wrote on meteorology of any note were Pliny, 

 who in his Natural History, lib. xviii. cap. 35, 

 wherein he treats of the prognosticks of the 

 weather, confounded his observations with abun- 

 dance of fabulous and absurd narrations; Virgil, 

 who in his Georgics imitated the prognosticks 

 of Aratus ; Lucretius, who endeavoured to as- 

 sign physical causes for most of the popular 

 phaenomena of the heavens; and, lastly, Seneca, 

 with whose superfluous tautology in his Natural 

 Questions, every one who has read them must 

 have been heartily tired. In the works too of 

 many of their other writers we find traces of 

 their meteorological knowledge. It is a pity 

 we know so little of the collateral history of this 

 as well as of the sciences among the Chinese and 

 Arabians; and among other eastern tribes of the 

 present day. 



Little account of the state of our science can 

 be traced from the time of the ancient Romans 

 to the revival of letters in Europe ; and it was 

 not till the middle of the last century that any 

 advancement was made in meteorology. Dur- 

 ing the middle ages which elapsed between the 

 decay of the Roman Empire and the general 

 revival of literature, meteorology like every 

 science, was confined to the monasteries and re- 



