" We are led, in reflecting upon the far more
probable success of the meteorologist, to similar forebodings upon
the dulness and sameness to which social intercourse will be reduced
when the weather philosophers shall succeed in subjecting the changes
of the atmosphere to rules and predictions,--when the rain shall
fall where it is expected, the wind blow no longer "where it listeth,"
and wayward man no longer find his counterpart in nature. But we
console ourselves by contemplating the difficulties of the problem,
and the improbability, that, in our generation at least, we shall be
deprived of these subjects of general news and universal interest.
During the last half-century, the progress of experimental
philosophy in the direction of the weather, though its results are
for the most part of a negative character, has yet been sufficient
to excite the apprehensions of the philanthropist. We have unlearned
many fables and false theories, and have made great advancement in
that knowledge of our ignorance, which is the only true foundation
of positive science.
The moon has been deposed from the executive chair, though she still
has her supporters and advocates; and an innumerable host of minor
causes are found to constitute, upon strictly republican principles,
the ruling power of the winds and the rain.
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