The Weather Almanac for the Year 1838. By P. Murphy,[703] Esq., M.N.S.
By M. N. S. is meant _member of no society._. This almanac bears on the
title-page two recommendations. The _Morning Post_ calls it one of the most
important-if-true publications of our generation. The _Times_ says: "If the
basis of his theory prove sound, and its principles be sanctioned by a more
extended experience, it is not too much to say that the importance of the
discovery is equal to that of the longitude." Cautious journalist! Three
times that of the longitude would have been too little to say. That the
landsman might predict the weather of all the year, at its beginning, Jack
would cheerfully give up astronomical longitude--_the_ problem--altogether,
and fall back on chronometers with the older Ls, lead, latitude, and
look-out, applied to dead-reckoning. Mr. Murphy attempted to give the
weather day by day: thus the first seven days of March {328} bore
Changeable; Rain; Rain; Rain-_wind_; Changeable; Fair; Changeable. To aim
at such precision as to put a fair day between two changeable ones by
weather theory was going very near the wind and weather too. Murphy opened
the year with cold and frost; and the weather did the same. But Murphy,
opposite to Saturday, January 20, put down "Fair, Probable lowest degree of
winter temperature." When this Saturday came, it was not merely the
probably coldest of 1838, but certainly the coldest of many consecutive
years. Without knowing anything of Murphy, I felt it prudent to cover my
nose with my glove as I walked the street at eight in the morning. The
fortune of the Almanac was made. Nobody waited to see whether the future
would dement the prophecy: the shop was beset in a manner which brought the
police to keep order; and it was said that the Almanac for 1838 was a gain
of 5,000l. to the owners. It very soon appeared that this was only a lucky
hit: the weather-prophet had a modified reputation for a few years; and is
now no more heard of. A work of his will presently appear in the list.