The fact that a vast proportion of the conversations in which human beings engage begin with remarks about the weather has often been noted, but perhaps never fully explained. Meteorologists sometimes adduce this fact as evidence that weather is a subject of overshadowing importance. This bit of reasoning will not, however, bear critical analysis. It carries with it the implication that people talk about weather because weather is uppermost in their thoughts. How often is such the case? Brown, meeting Jones, remarks that it is a fine day. Are we to infer that Brown was meditating upon the agreeable state of the atmosphere before he vouchsafed this not altogether novel observation? Hardly. There is about one chance in a thousand that weather was in his mind at all. It is a plausible thesis that people talk so much about weather because, at an earlier period in the history of mankind, this subject _was_ of supreme importance. Perhaps it is a custom handed down from our remote ancestors, whose occupations were nearly all carried on out-of-doors and who enjoyed but a precarious shelter from the elements in their rude habitations. In India, as the period of the monsoon rains approaches, anxiety about the timely arrival and the abundance of these showers eclipses all other thoughts in the mind of the peasant, because a severe drought at this season means a famine. When our forefathers lived by hunting, fishing, and crude systems of grazing and agriculture, they were, no doubt, equally solicitous about atmospheric conditions that directly affected their food supply. In those days comments on the weather were by no means empty formulas. Men rejoiced together that the day was fine, because it was a circumstance upon which their dinner depended; and the prehistoric equivalent of “What beastly weather!” was probably accompanied by a significant tightening of the belt. Certain it is that in very early times people gave a great deal of attention to the weather and acquired a fund of wisdom on the subject which, along with a certain amount of superstitious unwisdom, has come down to us in the shape of weather proverbs. Many of these proverbs undoubtedly originated before the dawn of history, for they are found in substantially the same form among widely scattered races of mankind. Various popular weather prognostics familiar at the present day are mentioned in such ancient documents as the Vedas, the Bible, and the cuneiform tablets from the library of Assurbanipal.