164 
REVIEWS OF NEW PUBLICATIONS 
reached by the 1st of March, and that each edition consists of 5,000 copies, the 
gross income from those fifty editions will amount to £18,750. Such being the 
state of affairs, it is not, of course, to be expected that the work should be 
forwarded for review, and we shall, therefore, like the rest of our editorial brethren? 
in this case notice a purchased copy. 
Judging by the sale of this almanac, the majority of the public must place 
almost implicit reliance on Mr. Murphy’s prognosticating powers, and many, we 
know, are determined to make him right at all events, while others, on the con¬ 
trary, ridicule his pretentions altogether, and charge him with guessing , &c. 
The first class we have shown to be exceedingly numerous, the second and third 
very much less so, while those who candidly and impartially investigate the 
accuracy of the Almanac are indeed few. The only paper or periodical known to 
us which can be placed in this fourth division, is the Cheltenham Looker-On , a 
weekly paper which often contains articles of considerable interest. Mr. Moss, of 
Cheltenham, is now in course of testing Mr. Murphy’s anticipations, placing 
these and the actual state of the weather in juxta-position. 
That Mr. Murphy has always been right from the 1st of January up to this 
time (Feb. 16), we are not prepared either to prove or to admit; but we think it 
must be clear to every impartial and reasoning mind,—1st., that the weather is 
governed by certain fixed laws; 2nd, that these laws are not beyond human ken; 
and 3rd, that Mr. Murphy has in part discovered those principles. Be it, how¬ 
ever, observed that a single error is not to be supposed to militate against these 
three positions; on the contrary, to us the exceptions prove either, 4thly, that Mr. 
Murphy is not in possession of the entire secret, or, 5thly, that accurate predica¬ 
tions of an extensive tract of country cannot be attained by observations in a 
single spot. We say accurate, because doubtless the general course of the weather 
may be prophesied for the whole of Britain by observations in a given spot, 
but the rain, the snow, the frost, or the calm, may arrive a day later or sooner 
according to the variations of locality, surface, &c. While, then, these apparent 
errors, without pointing out either the impossibility of predicating the weather at 
all, or the entire accuracy of Mr. Murphy, only prove, what every one knows, 
that rain does not descend exactly at the same time over the whole country. 
Our weather-prophet succeeded in January in a most remarkable manner. 
His anticipations of the thaws and frosts were fulfilled, and, what is more, after 
the intensely cold night of the 20th (“ Probably the lowest degree of temperature .” 
—Murphy), when there w'as every likelihood of a long-continued frost, Mr. M. 
promised that it would he “ changeable ,” as actually proved to be the case. He 
has occasionally erred in his prognostication of u wind and rain,” but never, we 
believe, in that of “ fair ” weather. 
