PREFACE. ix 



and Roman philosophers continued to cultivate, 

 and which have been brought nearer to perfec- 

 tion in later times. 



Meteorology, regarded as a science distinct 

 from astronomy and astrology, appears to have 

 been first systimatically treated of by Aristotle, 

 who seems by his works to have been constantly 

 employed in observing and comparing natural 

 objects. He described with accuracy many at- 

 mospheric phaenomena,and employed himself in 

 investigating their causes. He assigned the cause 

 of the rainbow, and of the halo, and appears to 

 have given a more minute detail of the various 

 appearances of clouds, rain, hail, snow, dew, 

 meteors, and other phaenomena which occur in 

 our air than any preceding or cotemporary writer. 

 Shortly after him Theophrastus, who had been 

 his pupil, collected all the popular prognosticks 

 of the weather, under four heads; 1, Hsgt 

 vzruv ; 2, Tiegi crri^ccruv avspav ; 3, Hsgt 

 "fcztpuvuV) and 4, TIzgi try par uv zv^iuv : these prog- 

 nosticks Aratus soon embodied in his Diosemca, 

 Avhich was a sort of appendix to his astronomical 

 poem the Phaenomena, which was translated 

 into Latin verse by Cicero, by Germanicus, and 

 by Festus Avienus. We find meteorological 

 observations interspersed in the writings of the 



