A<jricultura I l\[etcorvIo(jif. 
335 
moisture to the closer strata below, during which, in the summer 
months, the atmospheric evaporation is powerfully strujjgling 
against the attraction oi the earth. However, some absorption 
does take place, even among what are termed impermeable sub- 
soils, and some retention among the most porous; since it is 
found, on cutting to any depth in the driest seasons, that a certain 
degree of dampness remains, which, at a few feet below the 
surface, the earth appears never to lose. 
Has the moon any appreciable influence in determining the 
character of the weather ? Notwithstanding the ridicule which 
sometimes attaches to the vulgar belief in it, tlie celebrated Arago 
did not disdain to examine into the question. At Carlsruhe, 
Orange, and Paris the meteorological registers concur in marking 
a slight predominance of wet during the whole of the first quarter. 
There have been various theories in this and other countries 
resjiecling the lunar action. In Howard's ' Climate of London ' 
great importance is attached by the author to the declination 
north or south of our satellite. Another weather-table, incor- 
rectly ascribed to Sir William Hersthel and Adam Clarke, 
assumes that the nearer the moon becomes new or full to mid- 
night the fairer the weather ; the nearer to midday the greater 
the liability to wet. 
M. Arago, from a careful comparison of tables compiled by 
observers in different parts of Europe, finds that the rain falls 
oftener during the increase than the wane of the moon by 6 to 
5 ; this is more particularly the case from the first quarter to the 
full moon, i. e., about the second octant. This is confirmed by 
Schubler. Out of 1"200 observations of wet days, occurring 
during twenty years at Stutgardt and Augsburg, he found that 
while ihe mean of the days of the four c^uarters and their inter- 
mediate octants, with one day following each, gave 140 wet 
days, the second octant and the day following it gave 165; or a 
probability of 8| to 7 in favour of rain at that period of the 
month. 
At Vienna, out of 100 repetitions of each phase of the moon 
(= 8 years), there was a marked prevalence of wet as follows : — 
Rains. 
When the full moon occurred in perigee . .81 
„ new moon „ ditto ... 80 
„ full moon „ apogee . . 68 
„ new moon „ ditto ... 64 
Mr. Howard's theory was, that when the moon was coming north 
across the equator, and while in full north declination, there was 
more rain than when she was going southward. 
In 355 days of observation in 1807, he found that there were 
the following quantities of rain : — 
