They will say, truly enough, no doubt, that they have known the weather to change at 'new' or 'full,' as the case may be, and they argue that it, therefore, must always do so. But, in fact, they have only noted a few chance coincidences, and have let the great number of discordances pass by unnoticed. But observations of this kind seem scientific and respectable compared with those numerous weather proverbs which are based upon the mere jingle of a rhyme, as 'If the ash is out before the oak, You may expect a thorough soak'-- a proverb which is deftly inverted in some districts by making 'oak' rhyme to 'choke.' Others, again, are based upon a mere childish fancy, as, for example, when the young moon 'lying on her back' is supposed to bode a spell of dry weather, because it looks like a cup, and so might be thought of as able to hold the water. During the present reign, however, a very different method of weather study has come into action, and the foundations of a true weather wisdom have been laid. These have been based, not on fancied analogies or old wives' rhymes, or a few forechosen coincidences, but upon observations carried on for long periods of time and over wide areas of country, and discussed in their entirety without selection and bias. Above all, mathematical analysis has been applied to the motions of the air, and ideas, ever gaining in precision and exactness, have been formulated of the general circulation of the atmosphere. As compared with its sister science, astronomy, meteorology appears to be still in a very undeveloped state. There is such a difference between the power of the astronomer to foretell the precise position of sun, moon, and planets for years, even for centuries, beforehand, and the failure of the meteorologist to predict the weather for a single season ahead, that the impression has been widely spread that there is yet no true meteorological science at all. It is forgotten that astronomy offered us, in the movements of the heavenly bodies, the very simplest and easiest problem of related motion. Yet for how many thousands of years did men watch the planets, and speculate concerning their motions, before the labours of Tycho, Kepler, and Newton culminated in the revelation of their meaning? For countless generations it was supposed that their movements regulated the lives, characters, and private fortunes of individual men; just as quite recently it was fancied that a new moon falling on a Saturday, or two full moons coming within the same calendar month, brought bad weather!