MOON. 



MOON. 



the earth and moon, causes an accumulation 

 of the liquid and movable materials spread 

 over the terrestrial surface, on that part ad- 

 dressed, towards the moon; hence, the rise ob- 

 served in the sea, and in the mercurial column. 

 But all this is owing to the agency of gravity, 

 or attraction, which, we contend, has nothing 

 to do with the production of wet or dry wea- 

 ther; the elevation and deposition of aqueous 

 vapour being, as we have said before, subject 

 to the agency of temperature alone. 



As to the calculations, the results of which 

 seem so irresistibly in favour of lunar influ- 

 ence upon the weather, we think it easy to 

 show that that they must be founded upon de* 

 ceptive data, and will not bear a close exami- 

 nation. The estimates of Toaldo, a celebrated 

 Italian philosopher, embrace a series of labo- 

 rious observations, collected during many 

 years, and compute the number of changes of 

 weather to the different phases of the moon, as 

 follows : 



New moon, - - - 6 to 1; 



Full moon - - - 5 to 1 ; 



First quarter - - 2 tol; 



Second quarter - - 2 to 1 ; 



Perigee - - - 5 to 1; 



Apogee - - - 4 to 1. 

 That is to say, of 7 new moons, 6 were attend- 

 ed with a change of weather, and at one of 

 them there v/as no change; of 6 full moons, 5 

 were attended with a change ; and, at the quar- 

 ters, the changes were twice as frequent as the 

 continuance of the previous weather. 



Now, such a computation, coming from so 

 high an authority, might almost be deemed 

 conclusive upon the subject. When, however, 

 we come to inquire more closely into the cir- 

 cumstances involved in the calculation, we 

 find ample grounds for suspecting its accu- 

 racy. In the first place, the term " change of 

 weather" is used by Toaldo in an ambiguous 

 and arbitrary sense, so that we are left igno- 

 rant of the specific change he refers to. But, 

 worse than this, he does not restrict himself to 

 the day when the change takes place, but in- 

 cludes any changes within 2 or 3 days preced- 

 ing or following a phase. It is easy to con- 

 ceive how a person, especially one prepos- 

 sessed in favour of a prevailing opinion, might 

 have been led, with such a privilege as to 

 limit, to take or reject a change, to throw it 

 into one quarter or another, as he might choose 

 to dispose of it, for the purpose of endowing 

 the moon with a power to which he thought 

 her entitled. 



The results of a series of observations 

 made by Pilgram, make it appear that the new 

 moon has less to do with the changes of the 

 weather than the other phases ; a conclusion 

 diametrically opposed to that of Toaldo, just 

 referred to. As the estimate of Pilgram is 

 founded on observations extending through a 

 series of no less than 52 years, it might be re- 

 garded, in point of authority, as at least equal 

 to that of the Italian philosopher. How are 

 these clashing results of observations, profess- 

 ing to be made with the utmost attention, to be 

 reconciled with truth] Do they not leave us 

 to infer that the data employed have been either 

 deceptive, unskilfully grouped, or that some 



incidental or accidental circumstances have 

 interfered with the estimates, and led to erro- 

 neous conclusions r 



The belief in the moon's influence over the 

 natural operations going forward upon our 

 earth, has by no means been confined to the 

 weather; and it would be a tedious task to 

 enumerate all the agencies she has been allow- 

 ed to possess over organic and vegetable life 

 both animate and inanimate. "Many of the 

 opinions vulgarly entertained upon this head," 

 says M. Arago, "are founded on well-establish- 

 ed facts, the error lying, not in the observa- 

 tions, but in the theory which makes the moon 

 the cause of phenomena, of which she is only 

 the silent and unconcerned spectator." The 

 distinguished philosopher from whom we have 

 just quoted, has cited a number of highly in- 

 teresting cases, which show in the clearest 

 manner how the effects that have been as- 

 cribed to the moon's influence, can be readily 

 traced to natural agencies operating around 

 us, and with which modern philosophy has 

 rendered us familiar. Such, for example, as 

 the pernicious influence upon vegetation, at- 

 tributed by gardeners and agriculturists to the 

 April moon ; the effect of the moon's rays in 

 hastening the putrefaction of animal sub- 

 stances, &c. ; all of which effects are doubtless 

 connected with the presence of moonlight, 

 merely, however, as an incidental circum- 

 stance, for they would take place equally well 

 in a clear atmosphere, even should there be no 

 such body as the moon in existence. 



Let us take, for example, the case of the 

 April moon, denominated by the French gar- 

 deners "la lune rousse." The change in this 

 case takes place in April, and the full either 

 about the end of this month, or some time in 

 May ; at which particular season, in our cli- 

 mate, the mean temperature of the air is but 

 little above the freezing point. Under these 

 circumstances the radiation from^the earth, 

 during a clear night, will often reduce its tem- 

 perature to, or even below, the freezing point ; 

 whilst a thermometer suspended in the air, a 

 few feet from the ground, will remain several 

 degrees above 32. Thus, the tender plants in 

 the soil may become actually frost-bitten, whilst 

 the atmosphere has been apparently too warm 

 to admit of such an occurrence. If, on the 

 contrary, the night be cloudy, the plants will 

 suffer no injury; not, as the gardeners allege, 

 because there is no moonlight to hurt them, 

 but because the radiation and cooling of the 

 earth will not take place. Thus, moonlight or 

 starlight, the injury to vegetation will be pre- 

 cisely the same, and the effect might as well 

 be ascribed to the stars as to the moon. 



And, again, it has been noticed by Pliny 

 and Plutarch, and is generally believed in most 



j countries at the present day, that the moon's 

 light sheds a copious humidity on substances 



i exposed to its rays, and hastens the putrefac- 



I tion of animal substances. That a copious 

 humidity is often shed during a moonlight 

 night, is not to be disputed; neither can it be 



] doubled that meats will spoil sooner, if ex- 

 posed to her rays, than if protected from them. 

 The nature and source of this humidity can be 

 no mysteries now that the rationale of the 



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