August 15, 1S95] 



NA TURE 



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stone of Broken 1 lill ; it seems lo bear some close relation to 

 granilite. The specimen is composed of quartz, garnet, and 

 felspar fragments. This rock holds out ho]ies that minerals of 

 economic value may occur in these regions. 



The peninsula on which we landed at Cajie .\dare must be 

 some seventy acres in extent ; on the top of the guano were lying 

 the primitive nests of the penguins, compo.sed of pebbles. .Some 

 hundreds of yards up these landslips I came upon two dead 

 seals, which Irom their appearance must have lain there several 

 years. I made a thorough investigation of the landing-place, 

 because I believe it to be a ]ilace where a future scientific 

 expedition might safely stop even during the winter months. 

 Several accessible spurs lead up front the place where we were 

 to the top of the ca]")c, and from there a gentle slope leads on to 

 the great plateau of South \'ictoria Continent. The presence of 

 the penguin colony, their undisturbed old nests, the appearance 

 of the dead seals, the vegetation on the rocks, and, lastly, the 

 flat table of the cape above, all indicated that here the unbound 

 forces of the Antarctic circle do not display the whole severity 

 of their powers. Neither ice nor volcanoes seemed to have 

 raged at the peninsula at Cape Adare, and I strongly recommend 

 a future scientific expedition to choose this spot as a centre for 

 operations. -Vt this jilace there is a safe situation for houses, 

 tents, and provisions. I myself am willing to be the leader of 

 a party, to be landed either on the pack or on the mainland near 

 Colman Island, with Ski, Canadian shoes, sledges, md dogs. 

 From there it is my scheme to work towards the south magnetic 

 pole, calculated by Ross to be in 75^ 5' and 150° E., Colman 

 Island lying in 73^ 36' .S. and 170" 2' E. I should have 

 to travel about 160 miles to reach the south magnetic pole. 

 Should the party succeed in penetrating so far into the continent, 

 the course should be laid, if possible, for Cape .-Vdare, in order 

 to join the main body of the expedition there. 



As to the zoological results of future researches, I expect great 

 discoveries. I base my expectations on one jioint — on the scars 

 found on the seals, which in my opinion point to the existence of 

 a large unknown mammal within the .Antarctic circle. Although 

 ihe white polar bear of the .Arctic has never been found in the 

 south, I should not be surprised to discover similar species there. 

 It would indeed be remarkable if, on the unexplored \'ictoria 

 Continent — which probabl)" extends over an area of 8,000,000 

 sipiare miles, or about twice Ihe size of Europe — animal life 

 hitherto unknown on the southern hemisphere should not be 

 found. 



It is of course possible that the unknown land around the axis 

 of rotation may consist of islands, only joined by perpetual ice 

 and snow ; but the appearance of the land, and the colour of the 

 water with its soundings, in a<!dition to the movements of the 

 -Antarctic ice, point to the existence of a mass of land much more 

 extensive than a mere island. 



It is true that the scientific results of this expedition have been 

 few , but my little work gives me at least the satisfaction of feeling 

 that it will fill a useful, if molecular, place among those strong 

 arguments which for years have accvnnulated, and which jirove 

 that further delay of a scientific expedition to .South Victoria 

 Continent can scarcely be justified. 



WE A THER EALLACIES} 



T N the long and |-)alient pursuit which the attainment of all 

 accurate knowledge exacts from man, it may sometimes be 

 instructive to turn one's gaze backward and contemjilate the 

 errors which have been corrected, the fallacies which have been 

 demolished, and the superstitions which have been lived down : 

 and this consideration has prompted me to take for the subject 

 of this year's address that wide range of human opinions which 

 m.ay fitly be classed under the head of " Weather Fallacies.'' 



Nothing could have been more in accordance with the law of 

 growth in other branches of knowledge than that Meteorology 

 should, in its earliest dawn, have been with difficully able to 

 emerge froni the mists and darkness of guesses and surmises 

 such as have surrounded the transfer of any truth from the 

 barbaric to the philosophic stage. 



It is to the Creeks that we must look for the first real w-eather 

 observations after the matter had passed through what may be 

 called the mere savage phase ; and we find Hesiod, Theo- 

 phrastus, and .\ratus presenting us with an early code of rules, 

 which serve at least to show us how little we have ourselves 

 advanced in some matters since their time. 



.Vn .-uidrcN'. delivered to the Royal Melcorologicxl Society, by Mr. Richard 

 Inwards, t'resideiu. (Reprinted from the Quarterly J(Jiitnato{i\\>t Society.) 



NO. 1346, VOL. 52 J 



One of our Fellows, Mr. J. C. Wood, has just given to the 

 world an excellent and scholarly translation of the work of 

 Theophrastus, which has not previously been put in an Engli.sh 

 garb, and Mr. Wood has done the whole country a great service 

 in giving us this translation of the " Winds and Weather Signs," 

 a book which contains a host of rules and observations about 

 the weather, and which, as might have been expected from the 

 production of the favourite pupil of I'lato and Aristotle, is sin- 

 gularly free from errors of the grosser and more superstitious 

 kind, such as were plentifully produced in W'estern Europe 

 many centuries later. 



lUit long before the time of Theophrastus, and ])robably very 

 soon after the invention of agriculture itself, there were w'eather 

 gods and weather fallacies ; for we find that Jupiter Tonans and 

 Pluvius— the thunderer and the rain-maker — were set by men on 

 the highest pedestals. And centuries after this, Lucian tell us 

 that it was usual in his time to offer prayers for suitable weather, 

 and he recounts in his " Dialogues '' how two countrymen w ere at 

 the same time ofl'ering up contrary petitions — one that not a 

 drop of rain might fall until he had completed his harvest, while 

 the other prayed for innnediate rain, in order to bring on his 

 backward crop of cabbages — lioth suppliants only too sure to 

 find that the ears of the image w ere deaf .as the stone of which 

 they w ere made, and that the wheels of the universe would not 

 wander or turn back for any selfish ends of man. 



In considering these early times, when the weather had to be 

 studied from cloud, sky and sea, and from the behaviour of the 

 animals and plants, we must be ready to excuse men for doing 

 that which is still too frequently a cause of error, viz. fore- 

 telling what they most w ished for, and putting down as universal 

 law that which was only a coincidence of totally independent 

 events. In considering weather fallacies it will be impossible to 

 follow a chronological order, so I shall treat them, or rather a 

 small portion of them, under the heads of saints' day fallacies, 

 Sim and moon fallacies, and those concerning animals and 

 plants, while finally I shall consider the almanack makers, 

 weather prophets and impostors who have from time to time 

 furnished the world with materials for its credulity or its 

 ridicule. 



The first class of w eather fallacies which I shall scarcely more 

 than mention, are those which refer to the supposed connection 

 between the weather of any day in the week or year, and that 

 of any other period, and it may be as well to state at the outset 

 that there is no kind of foundation in fact for any of these so- 

 called rules. They are for the most ])an born of the wish to see 

 certain kinds of weather at certain times of year, and, like all 

 these predictions, were faithfully remembered when they came 

 true, and promptly forgotten when they failed. One has often 

 heard — 



" fine on Friday, fine on Suiulay." 



Or that " Friday is the best and worst day of the week," and 



the superstition even extends to hours of the day, for we have — 



'* Rain at seven, line at eleven," 



w hich is only another way of saying that rain does not usually 

 last four hours, and the rule generally fails when applied to d.tily 

 experience : but the host of pro\'erbs connected with saints' days 

 are more difficult to deal with, on account of the longer lime 

 which elapses between the prophecy and its fulfilment or failure. 

 XW or most of these proverbs concern the days of certain saints, 

 though I think no one imagines that this is anything more than 

 a c<mvenient method of fixing the date, because our ancestors 

 had a saint for every day, so that they naturally referred to the 

 day liy his name. 



There are forty weather saints, among the most prominent of 

 whom is undoubtedly .St. .Swithin, whose day is July 15, and the 

 sui)erstilion is that if it should rain on that day it will rain for 

 forty days after. Now, as .Mr. .Scott olxserves, this date is very 

 near a well-known bad time in wet years, as the terms, long in 

 use, of " .St. Margaret's flood '' and " Lammas flood " abundantly 

 testify. The fact that some of these heavy rains began on 

 July 15 has been enough material for theadiige-monger, and so we 

 have another " universal "' law laid down, a law which is, how- 

 ever, constantly broken, as every student of the weather very 

 well knows. The whole thing is a fallacy of the most vulgar 

 kind, and ought speedily to be forgotten, together with all the 

 adages which make the weather of any period depend on that of 

 a distant day. 



Turning in weariness from this class of superstitions, which 

 may be said to belong to the self-exploding order, we are next 

 met by an extensive array of authorities w ho, under the jiri 'lecting 



