THE WEATHER.—No. 3.

Ben Jonson, in his play of ‘Every Man out of his Humour,’ has a character of which some examples may still be found, even in our own day. It is that of a credulous man, who relies implicitly on the Weather Prophecies of the almanacs of his time;—and, his barns being full, resolves not to sow his ground, because the almanacs foretel

“Rotten weather and unseasoned hours.”

This species of credulity is probably not very often now carried as far as in the instance of Sordido, the dupe of the play;—but still there are some amongst us who will not cut their grass till they have seen what “Master Moore” says about the weather. In nine cases out of ten these superstitious confiders in an almost worn-out imposture, have in the end to exclaim with the miser of the old dramatist, “Tut, these star-monger knaves, who would trust ’em? One says, dark and rainy, when ’tis as clear as crystal; another says, tempestuous blasts and storms, and ’twas as calm as a milk-bowl. Here be sweet rascals for a man to credit his whole fortunes with^[3]!”

Now, let us see what the almanac oracle of the present time—“Francis Moore, Physician”—says about the weather, for June, 1832. He says, in one of his narrow columns which runs parallel with the calendar of the present month, “Variable, with thunder showers flying about. Some showers at intervals, attended with electrical phenomena, EVEN TO THE END.” Be it remembered that this prophecy is for all parts of the United Kingdom—for England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland;—for the hilly districts and for the plains,—for the coasts and for the inland countries. A correspondent, who writes to us about the weather, very sensibly says, “Does it not often happen that they have many rainy days successively at Manchester, whilst not a drop falls at Leeds? How then can any man’s tables about the moon, or general rules for the weather, or the prophecies of almanacs, answer for both the hilly and level districts? The Cheshire men say that their rugged-topt hills knock out the bottoms of the clouds, and leave them as leaky as a sieve while passing over Manchester.” So much for the universal application of these astrological predictions of the weather.

But let us further examine this prophecy of Moore’s Almanac for the present month of June. There are some who impudently defend the publication of such predictions, as well as the predictions of political events which the same almanac contains;—and they say that the weather prophecies are only intended to give the average results of many years of actual observation, which make more impression upon the farmer’s mind in this form than if he were to refer himself to meteorological tables of the barometer, of the thermometer, of the hygrometer, and of the rain-gauge. Now, here is a prediction calculated to frighten the credulous agriculturist into a belief that the whole of June, throughout the country, will be unfavourable to hay-making:—“Showers at intervals, attended with electrical phenomena, EVEN TO THE END.” Electrical phenomena! This is a phrase as terrific as the obscurities of the ancient oracles. A phenomenon, as most of our readers know, is an appearance—anything made manifest to us in any way; and as electricity is doubtless one of the most important agents in producing particular states of the weather, rain and sunshine, wind and calm, heat and cold, may be equally electrical phenomena. But “showers at intervals, attended with electrical phenomena,” is a phrase naturally calculated to frighten the ignorant into a belief that the weather of June, “even unto the end,” will be rainy, attended with heavy storms; the most unfavourable state, because producing the greatest uncertainty and expense in the work of getting in the hay-harvest. This prediction was probably manufactured a year ago: it was printed in October last; and so far from giving a notion of what is the average weather for June—the only matter upon which the prediction monger could possess the slightest information—he prophesies directly in the teeth of the best meteorological records; for it is a well-known fact that in June the average number of days on which rain falls is under twelve—the lowest number of any month in the year. June, therefore, is in general the most favourable month for hay-making, whatever exceptions there may be in particular years; of which “Francis Moore” could know no more beforehand than the most ignorant peasant whom he deludes.

123But let us look a little further at the prophecies of the Weather-Almanac. June being lost to the hay-farmer by the fear of “rain and electrical phenomena,” July is to make him happy “with fair and hot weather.” The hay-harvest therefore will be, if possible, deferred by the dupes onward to July. Now in July a continuance of rainy weather commonly happens about the middle of the month; and this periodical tendency to rain has given rise to the popular tradition of St. Swithin. Of course there are exceptions to this tendency; but in this, as in most cases, the popular error has some little foundation in truth. The chances, therefore, are that the farmer who, for fear of “electrical phenomena,” has let June pass over without cutting his grass, will find a very short interval between the beginning of July and the periodical rains of the middle of that month; and thus a great deal of national property may be destroyed, and the credulous individual’s capital expended in vain, because he has chosen to believe in a musty cheat, of which even the propagators of the deception are ashamed.

We have endeavoured to show in a former Number (and we shall continue the subject in a future paper), that by the careful use of good instruments, some few facts may be established as guides in operations dependent upon the weather. In the place of these the observations of shepherds, fishermen, and others who have attended to the passing and local signs of winds, and clouds, and tints of the sky, and other omens, are not to be despised. These men are practical philosophers, who may fairly claim some accurate knowledge of the weather from day to day. They are much too sensible and honest to pretend to any power of predicting if it will be fair or foul weather, for a year, or a month, or even a week beforehand. Such a man has been described by the poet:—

⸻“In his shepherd’s calling he was prompt,

And watchful more than ordinary men.

Hence had he learned the meaning of all winds,

Of blasts of every tone; and, oftentimes,

When others heeded not, he heard the South

Make subterraneous music, like the noise

Of bagpipers on distant Highland hills.”

The late Sir Humphrey Davy, one of the most successful modern explorers of the secrets of nature, was not above attending to, and explaining the, “weather-omens” which are derived from popular observation. In his ‘Salmonia’ he has the following dialogue between Halieus (a fly-fisher), Poietes (a poet), Physicus (a man of science), and Ornither (a sportsman):—

“Poiet. I hope we shall have another good day to-morrow, for the clouds are red in the west.

“Phys. I have no doubt of it, for the red has a tint of purple.

“Hal. Do you know why this tint portends fine weather?

“Phys. The air, when dry, I believe, refracts more red, or heat-making rays; and as dry air is not perfectly transparent, they are again reflected in the horizon. I have generally observed a coppery or yellow sun-set to foretel rain; but, as an indication of wet weather approaching, nothing is more certain than a halo round the moon, which is produced by the precipitated water; and the larger the circle, the nearer the clouds, and consequently the more ready to fall.

“Hal. I have often observed that the old proverb is correct—

‘A rainbow in the morning is the shepherd’s warning;

A rainbow at night is the shepherd’s delight.’

Can you explain this omen?

“Phys. A rainbow can only occur when the clouds containing, or depositing, the rain are opposite the sun,—and in the evening the rainbow is in the east, and in the morning in the west; and as our heavy rains, in this climate, are usually brought by the westerly wind, a rainbow in the west indicates that the bad weather is on the road, by the wind, to us; whereas the rainbow in the east proves that the rain in these clouds is passing from us.

“Poiet. I have often observed, that when the swallows fly high fine weather is to be expected or continued; but when they fly low, and close to the ground, rain is almost surely approaching. Can you account for this?

“Hal. Swallows follow the flies and gnats, and flies and gnats usually delight in warm strata of air; and as warm air is lighter, and usually moister, than cold air, when the warm strata of air are high, there is less chance of moisture being thrown down from them by the mixture with cold air; but when the warm and moist air is close to the surface, it is almost certain that, as the cold air flows down into it, a deposition of water will take place.

“Poiet. I have often seen sea-gulls assemble on the land, and have almost always observed that very stormy and rainy weather was approaching. I conclude that these animals, sensible of a current of air approaching from the ocean, retire to the land to shelter themselves from the storm.

“Orn. No such thing. The storm is their element, and the little petrel enjoys the heaviest gale; because, living on the smaller sea insects, he is sure to find his food in the spray of a heavy wave, and you may see him flitting above the edge of the highest surge. I believe that the reason of this migration of sea-gulls, and other sea birds, to the land, is their security of finding food; and they may be observed, at this time, feeding greedily on the earth-worms and larvæ, driven out of the ground by severe floods; and the fish, on which they prey in fine weather in the sea, leave the surface, and go deeper in storms. The search after food, as we have agreed on a former occasion, is the principal cause why animals change their places. The different tribes of the wading birds always migrate when rain is about to take place; and I remember once, in Italy, having been long waiting, in the end of March, for the arrival of the double snipe in the Campagna of Rome, a great flight appeared on the 3d of April, and the day after heavy rain set in, which greatly interfered with my sport. The vulture, upon the same principle, follows armies; and I have no doubt that the augury of the ancients was a good deal founded upon the observation of the instincts of birds. There are many superstitions of the vulgar owing to the same source. For anglers, in spring, it is always unlucky to see single magpies,—but two may be always regarded as a favourable omen; and the reason is, that in cold and stormy weather one magpie alone leaves the nest in search of food, the other remaining sitting upon the eggs or the young ones; but when two go out together it is only when the weather is warm and mild, and favourable for fishing.

“Poiet. The singular connections of causes and effects to which you have just referred, makes superstition less to be wondered at, particularly amongst the vulgar; and when two facts, naturally unconnected, have been accidentally coincident, it is not singular that this coincidence should have been observed and registered, and that omens of the most absurd kind should be trusted in. In the west of England, half a century ago, a particular hollow noise on the sea coast was referred to a spirit or goblin, called Bucca, and was supposed to foretel a shipwreck; the philosopher knows that sound travels much faster than currents in the air—and the sound always foretold the approach of a very heavy storm, which seldom takes place on that wild and rocky coast without a shipwreck on some part of its extensive shores, surrounded by the Atlantic.”

We may not improperly conclude this paper with some lines which have been transmitted to us, as a production of the late Dr. Jenner, the discoverer of vaccination. We, of course, do not recommend an implicit reliance upon such natural prophecies of the weather of the coming day. But, at any rate, whatever connected with this subject tends to open a man’s own eyes,—whatever excites in him the habit of observation and comparison,—is a benefit; whilst a reliance, on the contrary, on the unprincipled quackeries of the more popular almanacs which still disgrace our country, as well as every other prostration of the understanding before the shrine of ignorance, is the most deceptive of all states of the human mind, and the most likely to engender a train of other delusions which shut up the sources of real knowledge, and degrade the whole moral as well as intellectual character.

SIGNS OF RAIN.

Addressed by Dr. Jenner, in 1810, to a Lady who asked him if he thought it would rain to-morrow.

The hollow winds begin to blow,

The clouds look black, the glass is low:

The soot falls down, the spaniels sleep,

And spiders from their cobwebs creep:

Last night the sun went pale to bed,

The moon in halos hid her head:

The boding shepherd heaves a sigh,

For see, a rainbow spans the sky;

The walls are damp, the ditches smell,

Closed is the pink-eyed pimpernel;

The squalid toads at dusk were seen

Slowly crawling o’er the green;

Loud quack the ducks, the peacocks cry,

The distant hills are looking nigh;

Hark, how the chairs and tables crack,

Old Betty’s joints are on the rack;

And see yon rooks, how odd their flight,

They imitate the gliding kite,

124Or seem precipitate to fall

As if they felt the piercing ball;

How restless are the snorting swine,

The busy flies disturb the kine,

Low o’er the grass the swallow wings,

The cricket too, how loud she sings,

Puss on the hearth with velvet paws

Sits wiping o’er her whisker’d jaws:—

’Twill surely rain, I see, with sorrow,

Our jaunt must be put off to-morrow.