Old Cumbria Gazetteer - weather, Cumbria: Clarke 1787


included in:-	weather, Cumbria
	weather, Cumbria: Clarke 1787
evidence:-	old text:- Clarke 1787 item:- winds
source data:-	Guide book, A Survey of the Lakes of Cumberland, Westmorland, and Lancashire, written and published by James Clarke, Penrith, Cumberland, and in London etc, 1787; published 1787-93. goto source Page viii:- "VIII. Wherever there are mountains, there are certain changes of weather, quite dissimilar to those which are experienced in leveller places; nay, there are diversities of climate in places equally mountainous, arising from the different directions of their hills, or the position of them with respect to one another; for by the intervention of hills, winds may be diverted from their original course, and part of them so diverted as to cross and interrupt each other; or they may be precipitated from the summits; or, again, in some cases generated by a mere agglomeration of clouds or mists. Now, it is well known what a material effect winds have upon the weather, or rather how intimately they are connected with it: and wherever the observers of the seasons find their prognostics changed from those of the low lands, where they are most commonly made, (because there they can be made with more certainty, and earlier with respect to their consequences,) there must be an amazing tract for natural philosophy to walk in, and examine the causes: yet this it may do with more ease in a hilly country, than a level one; because amongst hills the effects more immediately follow the cause, and both may be observed almost at once. In either case, it may perhaps divert a classic reader to compare the modern rustic method of foretelling weather, with that of Hesiod and Virgil." "..."

evidence:-	old text:- Clarke 1787 item:- winds
source data:-	Guide book, A Survey of the Lakes of Cumberland, Westmorland, and Lancashire, written and published by James Clarke, Penrith, Cumberland, and in London etc, 1787; published 1787-93. goto source page xli:- "..." "It may also be an amusement to the traveller, to take notice of the old-fashioned modes of foretelling the different kinds of weather yet in use amongst the rustics of every part, notwithstanding the general introduction of barometers; for it is by these only that they know, with any degree of certainty, what the rising or falling of the mercury indicates. The inhabitants of every mountainous tract have greater numbers" "[of] them than those of the plains, because their weather is subject to greater and more numerous variations. Pliny has taken notice of many of those signs which were in vogue amongst the Romans; he has, however, done little more than copy them from Virgil: and it is a thing not unworthy of our curiosity to observe what a similarity there is between the prognostics of countries so remote from each other; a similarity which, however, proves that they have both been founded on strict observation of the nature of things, and that they carry along with them not a little of that authority which is due to truth; though we can assign no better reason for many of them at this day, than what Virgil has done in a truly philosophic manner, and the most exquisitely beautiful language. Thus the swell of waters in the Firths, and the sound from the mountains, the deeper murmur of woods, the motions of Sea-Mews, &c. the lofty flights of the Moss-Drum, Mire-Drumble or Bittern, the shooting of stars, the mock-battles of Crows, and indeed almost all Virgil's prognostics, with a great many more not mentioned by him, are still taken notice of, and furnish to the attentive observer no inconsiderable knowledge of what is to come. I will add to those already mentioned, that appearance in the heavens called Noah's Ark; which being occasioned by a brisk West-wind rolling together a number of small bright clouds into the form of a ship's hull, and exhibiting a beautiful mottled texture, is pointed North and South, and said to be an infallible sign of rain to happen within twenty-four hours."

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