Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1882 — Old Fashioned Weather Signals. [ARTICLE]

Old Fashioned Weather Signals.

In the last year of the last century Signor Toledo, an Italian author, wrote a paper on weather indications, which was translated into different languages and has been accepted as authority in England and southern Europe ever since. The following are a few of his “signs” which our readers may have often heard before without knowing their origin: If the coals seem hotter than usual, or if the flame is more agitated, though the weather be calm at the time, it indicates wind When the flame turns steady, and proceeds straight upwards, it is a sign of tine weather. If the sound of bells is heard at a great distance it is a sign of wind, or a change of weather. Good or bad smells, seeming as if condensed, are a sign of a change of weather. When the spiders’ webs and leaves of the trees are agitated without anv sensible wind, it is asigfl of wind anci perhaps rain, because it denotes that strong and penetrating exhalations arise from the earth. A want, or too great a quantity of dew, being a mark of a strong evaporation, announces rain; the same is the case with thick white hoar frost, which is odlv dew congealed. If salt, marble, and glass become moist some days before rain; if articles of wood, doors, and chests of drawers swell: if corns on the feet, and scars of old wounds becdtne painful; all these signs indicate that aqueous vapors are exhaled f.om the earth.