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LUNAR INFLUENCES. 

 FROM 41 YEARS' OBSERVATIONS IN AND NEAR TORONTO. 



BY THE (LATE) REV. CHARLES DADE, GEORGETOWN, ESQUESING. 

 fliead hefore the Canadian Institute, Feb. Srd, ISIS.) 



There is scarcely an article of belief more deeply rooted in the 

 mind of man, and more universally diffused than that of the moon's 

 influence iipon all things both animate and inanimate upon this our 

 globe. It is not only the subject of the most refined speculations 

 which have ever exercised the human intellect, extending to the most 

 stupendous operations of nature, but is made to interfere in the 

 most commonplace concerns of every-day life. To pursue the matter 

 through all its bearuigs would be a tedious and unprofitable task, 

 and a mere record of childish and absurd superstitions. Many of 

 these chimeras, though sanctioned by high-sounding names and 

 venerable antiquity, have vanished. But one dogma has survived. 

 Traced back to the remotest ages, it still exists in the present genera- 

 tion, and, we might almost say, among all nations and kindred and 

 people. Job could talk of the " mild influences of the Pleiades,'' 

 and David uttered a prayer that the " sun may not hurt thee by 

 day, neither the moon by night." Thus, the idea that our satellite 

 exercises dominion over the aerial as well as the ocean wave is one of 

 almost universal acceptation. From the pilot or fisherman, who 

 looks upon the Saturday moon with dread as the harbinger of a 

 storm, to old Betty in the kitchen, who looks upon her as materially 

 affecting her culinary operations, farmer, gardener, lounger, lover, 

 all have their several aphorisms bearing upon this branch of planetary 

 affection, without, perhaps, being able distinctly to enunciate in what 

 their opinion consists. The popular argument is of the " Pourquoi 

 non?" description. If it is proved beyond all controversy that the 

 tides of ocean are subject to lunar control, why not those also of that 

 aerial ocean which encompasses our earth? Thus, in a review of 

 "Murphy's Anatomy of the Seasons," published in 1835, the writer 

 remarks : "In this present work Mr. Miirphy has undertaken to 

 reduce the weather to method by insisting on its intimate connection 

 with astronomy. To part of this we readily subscribe. That the 



