But these predictions only extend to a few days. Does the present state of the science afford any grounds to hope that prediction for longer periods will yet be attained? Weather-registers extending over long periods give no countenance whatever to the notion, that there are regularly recurring cycles of weather on which prediction may be based. Further, the xnanner in which good and bad seasons occur in different places with respect to each other, shows clearly that they have little direct immediate dependence on any of the heavenly bodies, but that they depend directly on terrestrial causes. Thus, while the summer of 1861 was almost unprecedentedly wet and cold in Scotland, the same summer was hot and dry to a degree equally unprecedented on the continent of Europe, and particularly in Italy; and such examples may be multiplied almost ad infinigurr6 The assumption that the equatorial and polar currents of wind at any locality may ultimately balance each other, would appear, from recent observation, to give some ground for prediction extending over considerable intervals. Thus, a wet summer W[1.4
predicted for Britain in 1862, from the circumstance of a most unusual prevalence of e. winds in the spring of that year. An almost incessant continuance of s.w. winds followed, which discharged themselves in deluges of rain, clouded skies, and a conse quent low temperature. As these s.w. winds prevailed till the sluing of 1863, less s.w. wind was looked for during the summer, which was thus expected to be fine and warm— a prediction which was realized. This prediction holds in about three cases out of four.
The following are a few standard works on Meteorology-, in addition to those already referred to: L. F. littemtz's Meteorology, translated from the German (Lond. 1845); Dr. Ernst Erhard Schmid's Lehrbuch der Meteorologie (Leipz. 1860); Professor Espy's Fourth. Report on Metemlogy (Washington, 1857); Drew's Meteorology, a useful haudbook (Lond. 2d ed. 1860); IIerschel's _Meteorology (1861); D. P. Thomson's Introduc tion to Meteorology (1849); Buchan's Handy Book of Meteorology (1868); Loomis' Treatise 091. _Meteorology (1868).