News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1884-12-18
HOW TO FORETELL WEATHER.
Signs Which Careful Observers May Rely
Upon.

A communication to the SoaHherfl
Planter deals with the subject of weather
prognostics. Few intelligent persons
can have any sympathy with the So
called prophets who oracularly announce
phenomena, giving dates. occasionally
making lucky hits, but as often firing
their random shots altogether wide OF
the mark. That there is, however,
something in weather philosophy, intel
ligent persons will be quite ready to
concede, and they will be in accord with
the views of the writer when he recon-
mends the observation of natural phe-
nomena, which has been long practiced.
He says:
If one could read the signs, each day
foretells the next; to-day is the progen-
phere is telescope and distant objects
stand out unusually clear and distinct a
storm is near. We are on the crest OF
the wave, and the depression follows
| quick. 1t sometimes happens that
clouds are not so indicative of a storm as
their total absence. In this state of the
atmosphere the stars are unusually nu-
merous and bright at night, which is also
bad omen. 1t appears that the tran
sparency of the air is prodigiously in
creased when certain quantity of water
is uniformly diffused through it. Noun
taineers predict a change of weather
when, the air being calm, the Alps Gov
cred with perpetual snow, seem on a
sudden to be nearer the observer, and
their outlines are marked with great dis
tinctness on the azure sky. This same
condition of the atmosphere renders dis
tant sounds more audible.
There is one redness of the east in the
morning that means storm; another that
indicates wind. The first is broad, deep,
and angry; the clouds look like an i'm
mense bed of burning Goals; the second
is soft and more vapory. At the point
where the sun is going to rise, and
few minutes in advance of his coming,
there rises straight upward rosy
column, like a shaft of dyed vapor,
blending with and yet partly separated
from the clouds, and the base of which
presently comes to glow like the sun
himself. The day that follows is pretty
sure to be windy.
It is uncertain to what extent birds
and animals can foretell the weather.
When swallows are hawking very high,
it is a good indication, because the in
sects upon which they feed venture up
there only in the most suspicious
weather.
People live in the country all their
lives without making one accurate OBJ
selvation about nature. The good OBJ
server of nature holds his eye long and
firmly to the point, and finally gets the
facts, not only because he has patience,
but because his eye is sharp and his in
ference swift. There are many asser-
tons, the result of hasty and incomplete
observation, such as, for instance, that
the way the milky way points at night
indicates the direction of the wind the
next day; also, that every new moon in
dicates either a dry or wet month.
There are many other stories about the
moon too numerous to mention. Again,
when farmer kills his hogs in the fall,
if the pork be very hard and solid he
predicts severe winter, if soft and loose
the opposite, overlooking the fact that
the kind of food and the temperature of
the fall make the pork hard or soft. NJ
merous other instances could be cited
to prove that the would-be shrewd
farmer does not interpret nature in the
right way, and that his conclusions, be-
ing hasty and incomplete, are wrong;
and until he studies nature understand
ingly, using a little common sense, so
long will he be more or less under the
ban OF superstition and Ignorance.