;8o 



NA TURE 



[August 15, 1S95 



away the Etesian winds by placing bottles made of the skins of 

 asses on the hills to receive then). Tini;vus relates this. After 

 hearing this about Enipedocles, one is not surprised to learn that 

 he thought there were two suns, that the moon was sha|x:d like 

 a dish, and that the sea was the sweat of the earth burnt by the 

 .sun. All this will be found in Stanley's " Lives of the Philo- 

 sophers." 



Almost in our own time, too, a '•pluvihige." or machine for 

 blowing away rain, was proposed in Paris. This, loo, was a 

 fallacy. 



To give an account of all the various ceremonies in savage and 

 civilised countries which have l>een resorted to for the purix).se 

 of changing the course of the weather, would lie here im|x>,ssible ; 

 but such rites have a common origin and a common result. They 

 begin in error, and end in failure. In India, the rain-god is im- 

 agined to pour down showers through a sieve ; in Peru there was 

 supix)sed to be a celestial princess, who held a vase of rain, and 

 when her brother struck the pitcher, men heard the shocks in 

 thunder. In Polynesia rain comes from the angry stars, stoning the 

 .sun ; while in Bumiah it is still the custom to haul down rain by 

 pulling at a rope. New Caledonia has its regular rain-making 

 class of priests, and in Moffatt's time the rain-makers of South 

 Africa were held in even higher estimation than the kings ; and 

 on the other side of the world the -Vlaskan propitiates the spirit 

 of the storm by leaving toUicco for him in a cave. In onr own 

 country, too, there have l>ecn weather witches of various grades, 

 and one described in Drayton's " Moon Calf" — 



'* Could ^11 winds to any one that would 

 Kuy them for money, forcing ihcm to hold 

 \\'hat lime she listed, tie them in .1 thre.id 

 Which, ever as the seafarer undid 

 They rose or scintled .xs his sails would drive 

 To ihc same port where.it he would arrive." 



The Kinlanders at one lime drove a profitable trade by the sale 

 of »in<ls. Aflt-r l>eing |iaid, they knitted three m.igical knots, 

 and told the buyer that when he untied the first he would have a 

 good gale ; when the second, a strong wind : ami when the 

 third, a severe tempest.' Sir Walter .Scott also mentions that 

 King Eric, also called "Windy Cap," could change the direc- 

 tion of the wind by merely turning his cap round upon his head ; 

 and old Scotch women are mentioned who, for a considera- 

 tion, would bring the wind from any desired ouarter.'- The 

 Mandan Indian rain-maker had a rattle by the noise of which he 

 calle<l down rain from heaven by the simple process of keeping 

 on long enough. It is safe to say that these are all fallacies. 



From the rain-makers we may now turn for a moment to the 

 almanack makers, and any one who will lookup an old alman.tck 

 of the early (xirt of the last century, will find the greater [lart of 

 it filled with lucubrations on the influence of the stars and con- 

 stellations ; he w ill also find a column giving for every day the parts 

 of the Ik >dy which are |Kirticularly under the celestial influences 

 on the given <lates, and when one sees for the first time this 

 column reading — head, chest, legs, knees, feel, iVc, onewonilers 

 what it can mean ; but it w.as then so well undersloinl, as not 

 even to require explanation, and there was geneially too a rude 

 woodcut of a hifleous human figure, tattooed with the various 

 signs of the zodiac to show the same thing. The sort of know - 

 lerlge that |)as,sed for meteorology in 1 703 may be learned from 

 the following extract from " ,Nleteorologi:e ' by Mr. Cock, 

 Philomathemat. 1 703 — a rare l)ook in the possession of ,Mr. 

 .Symons. 



"The twelve signs ate divided into four sorts, for some !«.■ 

 earthy, others water)', a third sort aery, and the fourth sort is 

 fiery. ' The author then goes on to stale that " Jupiter in the 

 Skinker (whatever that may l)e) op|)o.scd by Saturn in the Lion 

 did raise mighty .Sotith-west winds. . . . Observe when a 

 planet is in an earthy sign he was lately dried up by ]x.'raml>u- 

 iating n fiery sign, and after that, immediately having made his 

 progress in an earthy .sign, is (piile liound up from nmislure. ' 



II seems incredible that our ancestors, only a few generations ' 

 liack, couhl have bought, paiil for, and believed, such stufl' as ' 

 this. The early almanacks lK>lrll) gave a jirediction for the 1 

 ' ' ' ill Ihe year ; bul after a lime confined Ihem- 



■iinenl of ihe weather, fnr instance " Parl- 

 1- K .1 1S35 h.as Ihe following prophecy for June : 



•* F' ' vvers alleiided with thunder and liglilning "— - 



this • lirsi ten d.'iys. " lair and at limes hot " for Ihe | 



middle ol ilie month, and " refreshing rain for the gra.ss and 

 com ■' for any time liciwi-en Ihe 2isi ami the end of Ihe inonlh. 1 



' '' " Hi<. of iheGoihn," 1638. 



'^ y I'iralc." 1 



Authors of weather almanacks had already begun to seek 

 safety in vagueness. Some of these almanacks rose to a great 

 ixipularity on Ihe strength of one lucky gtiess ; and I think it is 

 told of this same Parlri<ige"s almanack, or some other of the class, 

 that it owed its reputation lo a curious prophecy of extmordinar)" 

 weather for July 31. when hail, rain, snow, thunder, kVc. were 

 freely indicated. Forgetting that the month had 31 days the 

 almanack maker had omitted lo insert the wealher prediction for 

 the last day, and a boy was sent from the jirinting office to know 

 how the space was to be fillcil up. The weather prophet was 

 too busy lo attend to him, Imt at last in a pa.ssion, s.-iid : " Put 

 down hail, rain, snow, thunder, anything"; and the boy 

 taking it literally told the compositor, who duly set into type 

 the extraordinary prediction, and which by a freak of nature 

 came true, and made the fame and fortune of the almanack 

 maker. This story, if not true, is at le.ist hen Irm-ato, and shows 

 the force of the bard's statement — 



'• Our indiscretion sometimes ser\-es us well 

 When our deep plots do pall." 



The Ihitish Almanatk for 1S31, published by the I'sefid 

 Knowledge Society, had no weather predictions. 



Patrick Murphy published a popular weather almanack, ami 

 his fame is saitl to have commenced by a lucky hit in one of the 

 earlier issues by which he indicated which wouUl be the coldest 

 da)' of the year. There is a copy of this almanack for 1S38 in 

 the library of the Society, and some former owner has evidently 

 taken the trouble to pencil in the actual weather opposite to 

 that preilicted. There were, according to this annotation, 89 

 incorrect forecasts. 91 doubtful, and the rest correct. 



This Patrick Murphy was not a mere charlatan. He had a 

 system, and though he ditTered from Sir Isaac Newton and the 

 Royal .\stronomical Society, he gave much study and research 

 to the subject of meteorolog)' — as shown by his various books. 

 There was an .'Vstro-Metcorological Society as late as 1861, and 

 we have some numbers of its Retards in our library. 



Next comes the subject of weather jirophets as distinguished 

 from mere almanack makers : and who profess, sometimes for 

 pelf, at other limes for honour and glory, to predict the weather 

 for any future date. Tliese are always arising, antl llie) do not 

 lack a certain number of followers, w ho, possessing a large angle 

 of credence, duly trumpet forth the successes of their chiefs, 

 when they are .so fortimate as to make any. The stock-in-trade 

 of a prophet is of a slender and cheap description, llenuist 

 have an inventive mind, a store of self-confidence, an insensi- 

 bihly to ridicule, and, above all, a keen memory for his suc- 

 cesses, and a prompt forgetfulness of his failures. Me should by 

 choice have a theory, and this should he of the elastic order, so 

 that if a predicted event does not punctually occur, he will he 

 really with a sort of codicil lo amend it. Hence we find that 

 the firing of guns has been cited as a sufficient reason for falsi- 

 fying a weather prediction ; and railways, loo, are s;iid lo have 

 an adver.se influence, one author (not a prophet) telling us that 

 they may be considered as " large winnowing machines, per- 

 petu.-illy fanning and agitating Ihe air with prodigious power, 

 ploughing the air. as it were, and causing waves of vast extent), 

 which, invisibly enlarging like the waves of the ocean, probably 

 meet each other, clash, and produce modified elTects, as 

 resultants from adverse motions." 



( )ne of the first weather prophets mentioned in that delightful 

 old book, Stanley's " Lives of the Philosophers." was Demo- 

 crilus, ihe Milesian, known as Ihe "laughing pliilosoplier," 

 who foresaw a dearth of olives, and by buying up all he could 

 gel might have made a fortune, but gave il back lo Ihe bargainers 

 with the remark, " \'ou can sec now that a philosopher can get 

 rich when he ple.ases. " Then there was Pherec)tles, of whom 

 Pythagoras was a favourite pupil, who preilicted an earthquake 

 three days in advance by the lasle of the water from a certain 

 well. Perhaps Ihe earliest of all was Elijah, who I roui the top 

 of Carmel ]H)inted out the coming s()uall cloud, and predicleil | 

 a great rain. lie forms a gooil model for imilalion to the 

 modern weather prophets, for he diil not propliesy until he saw J 

 the storm coming, and he made no .secrel of his method. We 1 

 have slill anmngst us in our country, mostly without honour, 

 seers who supply us with wealher predictions in various forms, 

 from the modest duodecimo almanack lo Ihe flaring liroadsheel 

 which compels allention ; bul il would be a task too lung 1" 

 enter on a systematic refiitalion of their conlrailictory gues.sesai 

 Ihe wealher. The last of these broadsheels Ihat caught my eye 

 hail fiir ihe days of the gale of December 1894, which Mr. C. 

 Harding has described lo us, the tame announcement of | 



NO. T346, VOL. 52] 



