(Vol. vii., p. 522.)
Your correspondent J. A., JUN., makes a Note and asks a question regarding
a popular opinion prevalent in Worcestershire, on the subject of a
"Sunday's moon," as being one very much addicted to rain. In Sussex that
bad repute attaches to the moon that changes on Saturday:
"A Saturday's moon,
If it comes once in seven years, it comes too soon."
It may be hoped that the time is not far distant when a scientific
meteorology will dissipate the errors of the traditional code now in
existence. Of these errors none have greater or more extensive prevalence
than the superstitions regarding the influence of the moon on the
atmospheric phenomena of wet and dry weather. Howard, the author of _The
Climate of London_, after twenty years of close observation, could not
determine that the moon had any perceptible influence on the weather. And
the best authorities now follow, still more decidedly, in the same train.
"The change of the moon," the expression in general use in predictions of
the weather, is idly and inconsiderately used by educated people, without
considering that in every phase that planet is the same to us, as a
material agent, except as regards the power of reflected light; and no one
supposes that moonlight produces wet or dry. Why then should that point in
the moon's course, which we agree to call "the new" when it begins to
emerge from the sun's rays, have any influence on our weather. Twice in
each revolution, when in conjunction with the sun at new, and in opposition
at the full, an atmospheric spring-tide may be supposed to exist, and to
exert some sort of influence. But the existence of any atmospheric tide at
all is denied by some naturalists, and is at most very problematical; and
the absence of regular diurnal fluctuations of the barometric pressure
favours the negative of this proposition. But, granting that it were so,
and that the moon, in what is conventionally called the beginning of its
course, and again in the middle, at the full, did produce changes in the
weather, surely the most sanguine of _rational lunarians_ would discard the
idea of one moon differing from another, except in relation to the season
of the year; or that a new moon on the Sabbath day, whether Jewish or
Christian, had any special quality not shared by the new moons of any other
days of the week.
Such a publication as "N. & Q." is not the place to discuss fully the
question of lunar influence. Your correspondent J. A., JUN., and all
persons who have inconsiderately taken up the popular belief in
moon-weather, will do well to consult an interesting article on this
subject (I believe attributed to Sir D. Brewster) in _The Monthly
Chronicle_ for 1838; and this will also refer such inquirers to Arago's
_Annuaire_ for 1833. There may be later and completer disquisitions on the
lunar influences, but they are not known to me.