430 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



rated by tracts of greater or less extent where but little or no rain falls; yet the 

 atmospheric conditions are very nearly, or quite the same in both, — the rainy 

 belts and the rainless ones. We may see from this how impossible it is, even 

 with the best instruments, to foretell absolutely what weather will follow even 

 favorable indications of rain. It is not difficult, however, to tell with tolerable 

 accuracy, say five times in six, what the weather will be t'rom one to two days in 

 advance if one observes closely the various phenomena of the winds and clouds 

 in connection with a reliable barometer. • 



" A rainbow in the morning 

 Is the sailor's warning ; 

 A rainbow at night 

 Is the sailor's delight." 



There is some solidity in this old saw about the weather, from the fact when 

 a rainbow is seen in the morning it must be in a westerly direction, the one from 

 which storms of the temperate zones most frequently approach. Again, when seen 

 in the east, the bow is formed after the storm has passed, and it is but fair to sup- 

 pose that pleasant weather will follow. It has also been noticed that the nearer 

 sundown the rainbow is formed, the better the prospect for fair weather. This 

 is because such bows are formed, not after the passage of small, local showers, 

 but of what we term clearing-up storms or those which are of wide extent. 



Weather-sayings like those already given, having their basis on certain known 

 physical facts, and being of themselves the simple statement of such facts, can 

 be relied on as true, and when the weather does not accord with them it will 

 geilerally be found that the failure was due to local or latent causes — such as af- 

 fect in a greater or less degree the most accurate conclusions of the meteorolo- 

 gist. 



In contrast with these is that class of senseless proverbs still passing as cur- 

 rent coins of science among the people of even the most enlightened portions of 

 our country, — proverbs originating by accident, and perpetuated in their exist- 

 ence through ignorance, proverbs whose absurdity and unreliability are observed 

 at once by any one who will subject them to the searching light of reason. 

 Among this class of absurdities are the following: "When the Sun sets clear 

 on Friday it will rain before Monday ; " " Three frosts and then a rain; " " As 

 the first three day* of December be, so will the months of winter be ; " "If the 

 woodchuck can see his shadow on Candlemas-day he will go into his burrow and 

 stay six weeks; " "It will be just as many days before a storm as the number of 

 stars within a circle round the moon." 



Enough ! Ye Gods ! What a pity that the authors of these sayings are not 

 known, for if they were, their sacred names might be handed down through the 

 ages, to a remote future, when an appreciative generation Would erect to their 

 memory an appropriate monument of donkey-skulls as high as the famous spire at 

 Cologne. 



There is not a point in one of this class of weather sayings but may at once 



