176 



NA rURE 



[Decembek 10, IQcS 



;ind his own remarks ; and at the same time, or somewhat 

 later, Vincent de Beauvais in France, Thomas de 

 Cantimpr^ in Belgium, Ristoro d'Arezzo in Italy, 

 Bartholomew Anglicus (or de Glanvilla) in England, in- 

 corporated the Aristotelian ideas in their encyclopaedic 

 works all bearing the general title " On the Nature of 

 Things " (" De Natura Rerum "). 



But the firm and absolute adherence to the doctrines of 

 the master, Aristotle, the denying of all that could not be 

 found in his writings, rendered the scholastic meteorology 

 so noxious to any real progress that it came into conflict 

 with all new ideas. Notwithstanding, these forced their 

 way by and by, and the beginnings of the modern experi- 

 mental science are to be found just at that epoch when 

 scholasticism had reached its highest point, namely, in the 

 thirteenth century. 



It is not yet definitely settled where the new experi- 

 mental science took its origin — most likely contempor- 

 aneously in France and in England, where the two friends 

 Pierre de Maricourt (Petrus Peregrinus) and Roger Bacon 

 can be considered as the first great representatives of the 

 new aims. 



The former, a French nobleman and military engineer, 

 is the author of the famous treatise on the magnet, and 

 made many optical experiments lilce his English friend ; 

 and although both have not dealt with meteorology 

 properly speaking — except the rainbow- — yet their general 

 influence must have been great on our science also. Roger 

 Bacon's energetic opposing of the experiment to the argu- 

 ment — " argumentum non sufficit, sed experientia," he 

 says in his " Opus Majus " — conduced naturally to the 

 observing of atmospheric phenomena instead of only inter- 

 preting the w-ritings of the ancients. 



Thus the new aims advanced meteorological observations 

 also, for which the ground was well prepared. As I have 

 just shown, such observations were made in antiquity and 

 never had w-holly ceased, despite frequent and long inter- 

 ruptions. For the custom of the Roman historians to note 

 in their annals the more important atmospheric pheno- 

 mena, especially those necessitating sacrifices, was handed 

 down to the chroniclers of the Middle Ages, whose 

 chronicles became richer and richer in entries of the 

 weather, until at the end of the thirteenth century these 

 records are so replete with remarks on the weather that 

 the character of the seasons could be traced back. 



Now the time is ripe for more systeinatic observations, 

 and we find at Oxford William Merle, a fellow of Merton 

 College, to whom remains the distinction of being the 

 first man in the Occidental world to keep a regular journal 

 of the weather day by day. It embraces the years 1337 

 until 1344. The journal is preserved at the Bodleian 

 Library. It is the earliest known journal of the weather, 

 kept at Oxford and later at Driby in Lincolnshire, where 

 William Merle was rector. 



A close examination of the circumstances forces me to 

 the conclusion that William Merle was induced to make 

 regular observations by the desire to ascertain the correct- 

 ness of the prognostics made by himself and his colleagues 

 at Oxford, where meteorology, or, more properly speak- 

 ing, astro-meteorology, had been flourishing since the time 

 of Robert Grosscteste, the famous Bishop of Lincoln. 

 Merle himself has left behind two MSS. on the forecasting 

 of the weather, and his contemporaneous fellow of Merton 

 College, John Eschendon (or Ashendon), whose name has 

 been corrupted into Eschuid, completed in 1348 a volu- 

 minous treatise of astro-meteorology bearing the title 

 " .Summa judicialis de accidentibus mundi." It was 

 printed at Venice in 1489, and served in the sixteenth 

 century as a text-book at the University of Vienna. The 

 work is usually quoted in meteorological literature under 

 the abbreviated title " Summa Anglicana," and is now 

 exlrf-mely rare. 



When, eighteen years ago, the journal of William Merle 

 WIS re-discovered, it seemed to stand all alone, since we 

 hid no knowledge of other observations made in England 

 or abroad ; but recently I h.ive been able to find out a 

 nearly continued sequence of series of such observations, 

 and to prove that from the fourteenth to the middle of 

 the seventeenth centuries, namely, until the invention of 

 meteorological instruments, the ' weather was regularly 

 observed in many places in Central and Western Europe. 



-N'O. 2041, VOL. 79] 



1 had noticed that some copies of the large astronomical 

 work, published in 1499 by Justus Stoettier and Jacob 

 Pflaum at Tubingen, " Almanach nova plurimis annis 

 Venturis inservientia, " containing ephemerides for the years 

 1499 to 1531, were full of meteorological entries written 

 on the broad margins. This induced me to make 

 systematic inquiry into copies of the work named contain- 

 ing such entries preserved in the great libraries of 

 Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The result of this 

 inquiry was rather astonishing. No fewer than 123 

 difterent series of meteorological observations belonging 

 to the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries were 

 found. Considering that this number of necessity repre- 

 sejits but a small proportion, and concerns only some parts 

 of Central Europe, we may safely presume that in the 

 whole of Europe their number must have been far greater. 

 .Some of these early scries of weather observations are even 

 corresponding ones, made by agreement. 



.A fresh stimulus for observing came at the end of the 

 fifteenth century from quite another direction. The great 

 discoveries of new lands and seas considerably enlarged 

 and widened old ideas and conceptions. Atmospheric 

 phenomena never seen before came to the knowledge of 

 man, and climates very different from those at home became 

 known. Intelligent men were struck by such varieties, 

 and we can clearly observe their effect on them in the 

 writings of that epoch. Luis de Camo'S, the famous 

 Portuguese poet, described in his epos, " Os Lusiadas," 

 for the first time minutely the water-spouts often observed 

 by him off the coast of Guinea and the storms in the South 

 Indian Ocean, while from the logbook kept by Christopher 

 Columbus during his first voyage we learn the deep 

 impression he got from the difference of climate and 

 weather in the Atlantic beyond the .Azores compared with 

 that eastwards of the islands. Such new observations 

 advanced mostly the doctrine of the winds, which was now 

 more fully expounded in Spanish and Portuguese works, 

 until in the year 1622 Francis Bacon was the first to 

 publish a special treatise dealing entirely with the winds. 



But meanwhile experimental^ science, the growing up 

 of wdiich I have just alluded to, was so much developed 

 that in the first half of the seventeenth century the prin- 

 cipal meteorological instruments were invented. To Italy 

 belongs the glory of being the native country of instru- 

 mental meteorology, the cradle of which stood at Florence. 

 These inventions proved the first step in making meteor- 

 ology a science, and now the shadows of the dawn are 

 fast disap[)caring before the full light of the rising sun. 



VKlYEKSnY AND EDUCATIOXAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



CAXtnRiDca;. — Certain friends of the Chancellor desire the 

 establishment of some award to be associated with Lord 

 Rayleigh's name, in order to commemorate the unanimous 

 election of a scientific investigator to the office of Chan- 

 cellor of tlie University. With this object they have de- 

 posited a sum of money at the bank, the interest of which 

 may be used for the purpose of awarding from time to 

 time a prize to be called the Rayleigh prize. It is. pro- 

 posed to adjudicate these prizes at the same time and by 

 the same adjudicators as the Smith's prize. 



The Walsingham medal for igo8 has been awarded to 

 C. C. Dobell for his essay entitled (i) " Protista Parasitic 

 in Frogs and Toads," (2) " Chromidia and the Binuclearity 

 Hypotheses"; and a second Walsingham medal to G. R. 

 Mines and D. Thoday. Mr. Mines 's essay was entitled 

 " The Spontaneous Movements of .'\mphibian Muscles in 

 Saline Solutions," and Mr. Thoday "s essay was entitled 

 " Increase of Dry Weight as a Measure of Assimilation." 

 Lord Walsingham has expressed his willingness to give, 

 this year, a bronze replica of the medal to each of the 

 candidates awarded the second medal. The medal is 

 awarded for a monograph or essay giving evidence of 

 original research on any botanical, geological, or zoo- 

 logical subject, zoology being understood to include animal 

 morphology and physiology. Essays for the ensuing year 

 are to be sent to the chairman of the special board for 

 biology and geology (Prof. Langley, The Museums) not 

 later than October 10, 1909. 



