160 



WEATHER ALMANACS. 



which the public was persuaded that the water supplied to the metropolis was 

 destructive to health and life. While this lasted, the papers teemed with an- 

 nouncements of patent filtering machines ; solar-microscope makers displayed 

 to the terrified Londoners troops of thousand-legged animals disporting in their 

 daily beverage ; publishers were busy with popular treatises on entomology ; 

 and tl-fi public; was seized with a general hydrophobia. It was in vain that 

 Bra? df analyzed the water at the Royal Institute, and Faraday attempted to 

 rea- r Londor into its senses. Knowledge ceased to be power ; philosophy 

 lost u authoilty. Time was, however, more efficacious than science ; and the 

 parcrysms of the disease having passed through their appointed phases, the 

 peop!^ WC:P convalescent. There was at another time a panic against atmo- 

 spV.^'tc air> cuiing which the inhabitants of the great metropolis (in a literal 

 sei -B) scarcely dared to breathe. The combustion of coal was denounced as 

 tl."} ^reat erl in this case. Calculations were circulated of the number of 

 cub'.c feet if sulphurous gas taken into the lungs of each adult inhabitant per 

 annum ; ',h j pioperties of carbonic acid were discussed behind counters ; patent 

 furnacec v^srs plentifully invented and advertised for sale ; and parliament was 

 urged to pass a bill for the purification of the atmosphere, and to compel all 

 who used files to consume their own smoke. 



A few years ago, the people of London were seized with a persuasion that 

 bakers used a poisonous substance to bleach the necessary article of food 

 which they manufactured, and forthwith a bread panic arose. A joint-stock- 

 digestive-brown-bread company was immediately formed. " Fancy baker," a 

 title previously assumed as a recommendation to their customers' favor, was 

 painted over ; brown loaves usurped the place of French rolls ; and the lacquey, 

 whose master adhered to his old taste in defiance of poison, as he sought for 

 white loaves, hummed 



" Tell me where is fancy bread." 



In 1838, the public turned its attention to meteorology, and the causes 

 which govern the changes of weather was the all-absorbing topic. Some of 

 the intelligent conductors of the daily and weekly press seriously descanted 

 on the great advantages which would accrue to the farmer, the gardener, the 

 manufacturer, the mariner, and others, from the certain prediction of the weather, 

 and looked forward, evidently not without hope, to an early period when, by a 

 new principle of science discovered by a Mr. Murphy, and he said, " probably 

 known only to himself" 



" Careful observers may foretell the hour, 

 By sure prognostics, when to dread a shower." 



Among the gifted individuals to whom it has been vouchsafed to see the 

 shadows which coming events cast before them, and who have conferred on 

 the public the inestimable benefit of their knowledge, the most conspicuous was 

 a gentleman who took the appellation and appendages of P. Murphy, Esquire, 

 M. N. S. What praenomen is indicated by P., we are not certainly informed, 

 but we believe it to be that of the patron saint of the Emerald isle, of which 

 this weather-seer is said to be a native. Indeed, there is abundant proof of his 

 country, in the prevalence throughout his writings of that peculiar species of 

 modesty which is generally considered characteristic of the " Land of Song." 

 We have, however, looked in vain among the many combinations of letters 

 expressing the various learned societies in this and other countries for the sig- 

 nification of M. N. S. We have found societies designated by every letter in 



