]17 



On motion of Mr. Ord, Dr. C. W. Short was appointed to 

 prepare a necrological notice of the late Wm. Short. 



Mr. Thomas Gilpin made some remarks upon the alleged 

 influence of the moon upon the weather. 



He did not mean to differ from Doctor Herschell as to the want of 

 lunar influence upon the weather, but he thought if there was any, it 

 was attributable to the change of her declination, and not to the effect 

 of light, or to the change of her phases, however various and os- 

 tensible. 



The condition of our atmosphere and seasons is effected by solar 

 influence and the change of the sun's declination from the summer 

 to the winter solstice, which being 47 degrees, takes a period of 183 

 days. 



The influence of the moon on the land of the globe is scarcely ac- 

 knowledged ; but on the water of the globe it is far more powerful than 

 that of the sun, and the change of declination of the moon is 1 degrees 

 more than that of the sun, say 57 degrees, all of which is accom- 

 phshed by her moving through one-half of one lunation, or in the 

 short time of 14 days. 



During the winter months, the new moon is always with the sun 

 at its greatest southern declination at the tropic of Capricorn, and her 

 latitude, or declination, is about 28 degrees ; but she has to pass in 

 14 days to be a full moon in the tropic of cancer, at a latitude or de- 

 clination of 28 degrees north ; in all about 57 degrees. 



Near the equator, or the middle of this ascending path, she passes 

 at the rapid rate of 7 to 8 degrees of declination per day, and the re- 

 verse of this in her descending path, from north to south, at the last 

 half of her lunation with corresponding but contrary positions, during 

 the summer cii'cuit. 



If the moon were to have any influence over our atmosphere in 

 this rapid and mighty range, it would be to draw alternately a south 

 atmosphere to the north, and a north atmosphere to the south, to 

 moderate the cold of the winters, and the heat of the summers alter- 

 nately in both hemispheres. But what effect the moon has upon the 

 aerial volume in this respect has not yet been attended to. 



These remarks are induced by the presentation of Mr. Luke How- 

 ard's papers to night, in which his observations show that the de- 

 clination of the moon from north to south produces an effect on the 

 barometer, which he has recorded in two positions in England, daily, 

 during twenty years; the laborious and elegant tables of which. 



