WEATHER PROGNOSTICS. 



and see whether observation has supplied any ground for the 

 supposition of any relation whatever of periodicity between the 

 moon and the weather. M. Schiibler examined this question 

 with considerable care so recently as 1830, and published the 

 results of his observations, which, shortly after, were re-examined 

 by M. Arago. 



Schiibler's calculations were founded on meteorological observa- 

 tions made at Munich, Stutgard, and Augsburg, for twenty-eight 

 years.* His object was to ascertain whether any correspondence 

 existed between the lunar phases and the quantity of rain which 

 fell in different parts of the month. He denned a rainy day to 

 be one in which a fall of rain or snow was recorded in the 

 meteorological journals, provided it affected the rain-gauge to an 

 extent exceeding the six-hundredth part of an inch. 



So far as his observations may be relied upon, it would 

 follow, that in the places where they were made, out of 10,000 

 rainy days the following are the number of those days which 

 would happen at the different lunar phases. 



Newmeon .... 306 



First octant. . . . . . 306 



First quarter . . . .325 



Second octant . . . . 341 



Full moon .... 337 



Third octant . . . . 313 



Last quarter .... 284 



Fourth octant . . . . 290 



Now, as there are twenty-nine days and a half in the lunar 

 month, if we suppose the fall of rain to be distributed equally 

 through every part of the month, the total number of these 

 10,000 days which should happen on the eight days of the 

 phases, would be found by a simple proportion ; since it would 

 bear to 10,000 the same proportion that 8 bears to 29^: the 

 number would therefore be 27'12. Whereas, it appears from the 

 above table, that the actual number which fell upon these days 

 were 25*02 : it appears, therefore, that less than the proportional 

 amount occurred upon them. 



Pilgrim had already, in 1788, attempted to ascertain the 

 influence of the hinar phases on the fall of rain ; and he found 

 that in every hundred cases there were 29 days of rain on the 

 full moon, 26 at the new moon, and 25 at the quarters. 



The preceding observations refer only to the number of wet 

 days. Schiibler, however, also directed his inquiries to the 



* At Munich, from 1781 to 1788 inclusive : at Stutgard, from 1809 to 

 1812 inclusive ; and at Augsburg, from 1813 to 1828 inclusive. 

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