GRISCOM ON METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 351 



When several of these points correspond, the probability of change 



is much increased. Thus, if the new moon happen at the turn of the 



perigee, the chance is as 33 to 1 



do. with apogee, 7 1 



Full moon with perigee, 10 1 



do. with apogee, 3 1 



Although there are several considerations, unnecessary to be now 

 introduced, which lessen the dependence that might otherwise be 

 placed on these results, yet every meteorological register, we think, 

 should contain a column exhibiting the aspects of the moon, with the 

 period, at least, of the apogee and perigee. 



A collation of numerous diaries of this sort may, at some future day, 

 either confirm, or totally invalidate, the opinion entertained by some 

 philosophers, that terrestrial as well as celestial events have regular 

 periods of return; and that there are cycles of weather corresponding 

 with some of the lunar cycles. 



The period of the apogee comprehends between eight and nine 

 years; and, according to Toaldo, there is a return of nearly the same 

 seasons in those periods successively. Others place greater confidence 

 in the lunar cycle of nineteen years. The ancients, according to Pliny, 

 ascribed to certain periods, a similarity of weather and seasons. But 

 unless it can be shown that the corresponding portions of those periods 

 take place at the same time of year nearly, which is clearly not the case 

 with the period of the apses, they cannot be entitled to much credit. 

 But it may, nevertheless, be not improbable that a cycle of greater 

 duration may be eventually found, in the return of which there will be 

 a complete recurrence of all those states and conditions with respect to 

 planetary and elemental revolutions, that shall conspire to produce the 

 same phenomena. 



There is another species of meteorology, very frequently attended 

 to by those who reside in the country, and which is considered by some 



