place implicit faith in the pretensions of our leading meteorologists, there is, nevertheless, a growing belief that the means of foretelling storms and atmospheric disturbances are within the reach of science. That belief has been promulgated to some extent by ourselves; for, long before weather forecasts appeared in the daily papers, the St. Leonards Gazette was made the vehicle for disseminating a foreknowlege(sic) of the weather. The principles on which our calculations are based has stood the test of years, and although occasional failures declare the system to be imperfect, there is no one of the several theories which have lately been started that can vie with it in point of accuracy. This is a bold assertation, but it is one that we make with an honest conviction of its truth.
Suppose we take a cursory glance at a few of the rules for prejudging the weather adopted by some of our modern theorists. That which, for convenience we will designate No. 1 is the astronomic or planetary theory better known as Astrometeorology. This is a system, as we have more than once explained, which exhibits certain influences exerted by the sun, moon and planets, when in conjunction, opposition, extreme declination, crossing the equator, perigee, perihelion, &c. It is a system, moreover, which enables its professor to calculate the probabilities almost any length of time beforehand. The advantages of such a system to agriculturists, tourists, and to such as make long voyages are too obvious to require enumeration. Number two we will call the linear system by Mr. White, a gentleman who fills the office of meteorologic correspont(sic) to the Mark Lane Express', and one whose incubrations have several times appeared in these columns. Here, too, astronomy is found to supply the chief elements; and it is but fair to say, that although differing in some essential features from the first-named theory, it has borne the test of approximate accuracy, and has proved, we believe, a great boon to farmers and others to whom the periods of heat and cold, dry and wet have been made known.
The Lunar Weather system of Lieut. Saxby takes its rank in our estimation as No. 3; not so much for its novelty, as because it supports, unintentionaly, yet in a remarkable manner, the very principle for which astro-meteorologists have always contended. The one great drawback of Mr. Saxby's system is that it supplies data for only six or eight calculations of weather disturbance in each month, leaving it to be inferred, that the other twenty or more days are, in a negative sense, necessarily under the influence of find and settled conditions. We believe in Mr. Saxby's system so far as it goes, and what he says of the moon, we would say of those planetary orbs many thousand times larger than our satellite, and as having, as has been proved, a chemical action on our atmosphere many times greater. It is this, that the philosophic dogma which declares them to have no influence on teh weather, binds the public mind in prejudices,sends numbers or our -
