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THE MOON AND THE WEATHER. 



375 



THE MOON AND THE WEATHER, 



THE physical laws which govern the phenomena of our atmosphere, and reg- 

 ulate the changes of the weather, have always been a favorite topic of specu- 

 lation. As the principles of astronomical science supplied means of predicting-, 

 with the highest possible degree of certainty and precision, the motions and 

 appearances of the heavenly bodies, it was not unnaturally expected that at- 

 mospherical phenomena might be brought under equally clear and certain rules. 

 The connexion of the lunar motions with the tides was apparent, long before 

 the mechanical influence by which the moon produced the rise and fall of the 

 waters of the ocean was explained ; and this gave countenance, at a very early 

 period, to the idea that that body had an influence on the atmosphere, if not as 

 certain and regular as on the waters, still sufficiently so to furnish probable 

 grounds for conjecture as to certain periodical changes. 



But even before analogies of this kind could have furnished much ground for 

 reasoning, and when the heavenly bodies must have been regarded more as 

 signs than causes, meteorological phenomena were connected with them by 

 popular observation. The influence of climate on all the interests of a people 

 in a pastoral, and subsequently in an agricultural state, is obvious ; and accord- 

 ingly we find weather prognostics coming down by tradition from the most re- 

 mote antiquity. By a course, however, contrary to most other subjects of ob- 

 servation and inquiry, this was corrupted rather than improved with the progress 

 of knowledge and civilization ; and what was once a mere system of signs of 

 a certain present state of the atmosphere, indicating certain approaching changes, 

 was, by the craving of philosophy after the relations of cause and effect, con- 

 verted into the most absurd system of rules, having no foundation in nature, 

 never fulfilled by the phenomena except fortuitously, and maintaining their as- 

 cendency by the unbounded credulity of mankind. 



In the writings of Aristotle, and, after him, in those of Theophrastus, Aratus, 

 Theon, and others, although meteorology is treated as a part of astronomy, or 

 astrology, it is easy to trace the simple views of the more ancient and less phi- 



