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The Ice-Saints.
There are three days in the spring of the year called by the French _Les
Saints de Glace_. These days are the 12th, 13th, and 14th of May, and
the saints to whom they are dedicated are Saint Mamert, Saint Pancras,
and Saint Servais. They are very obscure saints, in honor of whom few
children have been named, and, were it not for the vast parish of Saint
Pancras which once comprised all the northwestern part of London, their
names as well as their history would be, to Protestants at least,
entirely unknown. They have, however, the evil reputation of commonly
bringing with them a nipping frost, and are abhorred in Burgundy as the
great enemies of the vine.
Their advent this year was telegraphed to Paris by the New York
"Herald," whose weather reporter was probably quite ignorant of any
ecclesiastical traditions connected with the matter. On May 11 the
following despatch was received in Paris: "A great depression, having
its centre in the neighborhood of Lake Ontario, will be followed by a
cyclone of great extent, travelling in the direction of Halifax, It will
probably occasion great changes of temperature along the coasts of Great
Britain and France, beginning May 12 and continuing till May 14." Never
was prediction better fulfilled. The Ice-Saints sank the French
thermometer to 6° Centigrade, corresponding to 21° Fahrenheit, a
temperature more severe in those latitudes than the cold of an ordinary
Christmas. When the Ice-Saints had departed the weather grew mild again.
M. Quetelet, the head of the Observatory at Brussels, has paid great
attention to the periodicity of weather-changes in Europe. The result of
his investigations is as follows:
I. That there is always a "cold snap" between the 7th and 11th of
January, during which ordinarily occurs the coldest day of the year.
II. That from January 22 to March 1 there is, as we say in our
vernacular, "a let-up" on the coldness of the temperature. In France
there is no ground-hog, or, if there is, he so generally sees no shadow
upon Candlemas (February 2) that the three weeks succeeding it are
called _L'Été de la Chandeleur_.
III. In April cold may be expected from the 9th to the 22d, and the
Ice-Saints may prolong their influence to May 23, after which there is
no more possibility of frosts in France, though within my memory June
frosts have been twice known in Maryland and Virginia. The prolonged
frost in May is said to be produced by an understanding between the
Ice-Saints and what is called in France _La Lune Rousse_,--the Red Moon.
IV. Though it needs no prophet to foretell hot weather from June 6 to
June 23. M, Quetelet's observations point to June 13 and June 22 as days
of exceptionally high temperature.
V. Between July 4 and July 8 comes the hottest day of the summer, which
is not to be looked for in the dog-days, which are from July 21 to
August 20.
VI. July 25 distinguishes itself by being cool, and August 25 tempers
ten days of heat which commonly begin on the 15th of August.
VII. September 14 and September 30 are days when the thermometer may be
expected to make a sudden fall.
VIII. Cold weather may be looked for from October 20 to October 29, and
from November 10 to November 19; but in the first ten days of November
comes what we call Indian summer, and the French _L'Été des
Morts_,--because it succeeds All-Souls' Day,--or _L'Été de Saint
Martin_.
M. Quetelet adds no observations on December, it being presumably a cold
month everywhere.
M. Fourmet, of Lyons, has also made meteorological observations of the
same nature in Southern France, and especially in the valley of the
Rhone. He says the lowest temperature in each month is as follows:
January 9 and 21. February 3, 12, and 20. March 5 and 21. April 19. May
12, 13, and 14. June 8, 20, and 27. July 12 and 25. August 2, 12, and
24. September 5, 15, and 30. October 22. November 5 and 17. December 3
and 29.
M. Charles Sainte-Claire Deville has also been engaged in careful
weather-calculations for many years, and has been in constant
correspondence on the subject with the Académie des Sciences. His theory
is based on the existence of the three Ice-Saints in May, and he
considers that a similar periodic influence may be traced in other
months of the year. He maintains that there are three days in every
month, with an interval of about ten days between them, in which we may
look for a fall of temperature, and that the weather gradually grows
warmer during the interval that separates them. His observations are
only in part corroborated by those of M. Quetelet and M. Fourmet.