Catalogue of IVorks on Gardening, SfC. 371 



interesting, if not instructive, to the gardener ; and we therefore make some 

 quotations and abridgments with that view. 



" In order to arrive at any comparative estimate of Weather Predictions, it 

 w ill be important to notice briefly the principles of the theories adopted by the 

 most popular theorists of the day. The chief aspirants for predictive fame 

 are. Murphy, Zadkiel, Simmonite, and Hind, who shall be noticed in due 

 order; and first, Murphy,"whose fame was established upon his successful 

 prediction in January, 1838, when he predicted that the minimum temperature 

 of that winter would occur on the 20th of that month, which prediction was 

 verified to the very hour ; but this prediction is not so truly wonderful as it 

 at first sight appears to us, when we reflect that England's champion in Me- 

 teorology, Luke Howard, has clearly demonstrated, from careful observations 

 through a period of twenty years, "that the greatest cold of winter generally 

 takes places about the time when the sun enters Aquarius, which is on the 

 20th of January. But the principles upon which Murphy founds his predic- 

 tions are not scientific, and capable of mathematical demonstration — for he 

 forms his predictions upon comparison of the seasons of different years — the 

 seasons of the same year, and their principal phenomena — such as the oppo- 

 site extremes of winter cold and summer heat, the equinoctial gales, and other 

 chief periods of storm or rain. Now, if we compare the seasons of different 

 years, what analogy do we find ? Take, for example, the month of March 

 last year, and the present, and where do we find the least analogy? — the 

 one cold and dreary (1840), and the other (1841) brilliant and summer-hke. 



" Mean temperature of 1840, 39-43 being 2-08 below the average mean. 

 1841, 46-23 being 4*74 above the average mean. 



" Increase of March 1841, over! „.r,o 

 March 1840. J- o »4 



" Murphy proceeds to adopt a new theory ; viz. — Assuming the Sun to be 

 a globe of fire, and assuming also that the Sun is the origin of planetary 

 and cometary temperature ; he attempts to regulate planetary temperature 

 throughout the solar system, and to show that such temperature must be the 

 sustaining principle of life wherever it exists ; hence, says he, ' in the absence 

 of more direct proof, we are warranted in concluding that t\\e same standard 

 of temjjerature exists throughout the whole of the heavenly bodies.' Murphy 

 considers that ' solar reflection is the first law in physics,' for, says he, ' how- 

 ever improbable the fact of reflected action may at first appear, it has, as re- 

 gards the principle of temperature, and the other local phenomena of the sun 

 and planets, the effect of approximating and uniting the entire superficies of 

 these bodies, however individually distant from each other, on the same plane 

 of action. For when it is considered that the effect of reflection \s to reverse 

 the scale of the action it induces on the body acted on, in the direction of the body 

 reflected, it will follow, that the distance of the reflecting surface on the one 

 hand, from the body reflected on the other, can induce no difference in the 

 local effect of such reflected action on the former.' 



" If, then, the sun has the power of equalising the temperature throughout 

 the planetary system, we may rationally enquire. How is it that March, 1841, 

 has been so much hotter than March, 1840 ? They are corresponding months, 

 and both fall at the same season of the year ; hence Murphy's first law of 

 physics. Reflection, does not hold good for two years together. But in order 

 to set discrepancies of this kind at' rest. Murphy tells us that ' magnetism pro- 

 duces cold, and electricity produces heat;'' — hence we were magnetised in 

 1840, and electricised in 1841 ! 



" I come now to the principles of one of the most beautiful theories ever 

 held out to the investigation of science — a theory that is capable of mathe- 

 matical demonstration, — a theory that is built upon no less a basis than that 

 of the solar system itself — upon the system of planetary cooperation in fact, in 

 which each planet through solar or lunar agency, acts upon the gaseous sub- 



B B 3 



