fellow creatures into eternity and scatters an enormous amount of property in wrecks along the coast." We have intimated that the Saxby-Lunar system does not go far enough, and our opinion is based upon the fact that some of the most violent storms have arisen simultaneously with certain configurations of the earth and planets at a time when the moon was in no one of the positions pointed out as likely to cause a disturbance. A pretty good proof of this was given in our article on the "Recent Storms and Other Phenomena."
System No. 4 we will suppose to be that in which the barometer and telegraph play an important part, and with which is associated the name of Admiral Fitzroy. We have dealt with this system in previous articles, and we here reiterate the opinion that notwithstanding the great number of failures resulting to its forecasts hitherto, and the very circumscribed periods of warming in the case of storms, it is one that has already done some good in the saving of life and property, and is calculated to confer on mariners and others a still greater benefit, so soon as the worthy Admiral at its head shall put aside his present prejudice against astronomic meteorology. We have on one or two occasions placed in parallel columns a series of predictions and a corresponding series of the Fitzroy forecasts. Comparing them with actual occurrences it has been seen at a glance that the verifications have been immensely favourable to the calculations deduced from the planetary method. We have again taken some pains to compare notes by placing in juxta-position the said predictions and forecasts with the actual state of the weather for the period of two months and we find the results corroborate previous comparisons; but, to enable the readers of the Gazette to judge for themselves we annex the comparison referred to. The said comparison is in a tabulated form and is too lengthy to be conveniently copied into these pages; it is, consequently omitted. It may be said, however that in the tabulated arrangement the forecasts are given in the exact terms as they appeared in the Times, while the 'predictions', reduced to their simplest and most concise form, are those contained in the metrical effusions which were given from week to week in the Gazette. In order to show that everything is 'fair and above board', we would suggest to those who feel disposed to take the trouble a comparison with the originals in the two journals referred to. And now, what are the results here exhibited?
In the month of August (commencing from the 4th, the earliest Times to which the writer has access) we find no fewer than 25 verified predictions out of 28, whilst out of an equal number of "forecasts", and with the most Liberal interpretations, we cannot find more than 20 fulfilments. The disparity, we confess, is not over large, but in the next month when storms and unsettled weather occurred, both with a high and low barometer, and with the movements of that instrument, sometimes in direct opposition to the rules laid down, the failures of the Fitzroy system were very numerous, they being equal to 17, as compared with only four failures -
