The moon was usually held responsible for these changes in the weather, and sometimes for less likely things as well. My grandfather writes to my father, 13 April 1856:--“A Saturday moon, they say, is too late or too soon, and there is no other prospect but a wet moon throughout.” On 29 June 1848:--“The old women here say we may expect to see measles in the growing of the moon: they tell me they never knew a case on the waning of the moon.” Measles were prevalent just then, and the moon was new next day; and on 23 July he remarks that the old women had proved right, so far. My grandfather had a notion that all ordinary ailments could be cured by Quiet and Diet, and possibly such homely remedies as Coltsfoot Tea, or, better still, “a glass of real Cognac--the sovereign remedy, but not to be obtained down here,” as he writes to my father, 19 July 1869. But, if he did not recognize an ailment, he got medical advice at once. A visitor being taken ill here, the local doctor was called in; and my grandfather writes to my father, 25 July 1847:--“He said it was occasioned by her imprudently sleeping with her window open one hot night.... I hope you do not admit the night air into your room, however hot--a most injurious practice, I am told. I never did it.” My grandmother writes to him, 15 May 1850:--“I fear you trifle with yourself in some things, such as dressing mornings with your bed-room window open. Nothing can be more injurious than that, particularly this very cold weather--indeed, it is wrong at any season to open it before you are dressed.” These opinions are supported by Buchan’s _Domestic Medicine_, ed. 1788, which was one of the books in use here. It says, page 148:--“Inflammatory fevers and consumptions have often been occasioned by sitting or standing thinly cloathed near an open window. Nor is sleeping with open windows less to be dreaded.” But these old people faced the air outside quite early in the mornings. My grandfather writes, 29 April 1849:--“I often wonder how anyone can lie in bed in May, not witnessing the beauty of the crystalled May-dew.... The barley throws up its blade or leaf about three inches high, quite erect, and on its tip top is this little spangled dew-drop. The leaf else is perfectly dry, if real dew--if from frost, the leaf is wet.” Again, on 7 January 1856:--“This morning the wheat was looking beautiful, like the barley in May. I stayed some time admiring it, with its little spangled tops shining like crystals.” * * * * *