* * * * *
The Ice-Saints.
There are three days in the spring of the year called by the French Les Saints de Glace. These days are the 12th, 13th, and 14th of May, and the saints to whom they are dedicated are Saint Mamert, Saint Pancras, and Saint Servais. They are very obscure saints, in honor of whom few children have been named, and, were it not for the vast parish of Saint Pancras which once comprised all the northwestern part of London, their names as well as their history would be, to Protestants at least, entirely unknown. They have, however, the evil reputation of commonly bringing with them a nipping frost, and are abhorred in Burgundy as the great enemies of the vine.
Their advent this year was telegraphed to Paris by the New York "Herald," whose weather reporter was probably quite ignorant of any ecclesiastical traditions connected with the matter. On May 11 the following despatch was received in Paris: "A great depression, having its centre in the neighborhood of Lake Ontario, will be followed by a cyclone of great extent, travelling in the direction of Halifax, It will probably occasion great changes of temperature along the coasts of Great Britain and France, beginning May 12 and continuing till May 14." Never was prediction better fulfilled. The Ice-Saints sank the French thermometer to 6° Centigrade, corresponding to 21° Fahrenheit, a temperature more severe in those latitudes than the cold of an ordinary Christmas. When the Ice-Saints had departed the weather grew mild again.
M. Quetelet, the head of the Observatory at Brussels, has paid great attention to the periodicity of weather-changes in Europe. The result of his investigations is as follows:
I. That there is always a "cold snap" between the 7th and 11th of
January, during which ordinarily occurs the coldest day of the year.
II. That from January 22 to March 1 there is, as we say in our vernacular, "a let-up" on the coldness of the temperature. In France there is no ground-hog, or, if there is, he so generally sees no shadow upon Candlemas (February 2) that the three weeks succeeding it are called L'Été de la Chandeleur.
III. In April cold may be expected from the 9th to the 22d, and the Ice-Saints may prolong their influence to May 23, after which there is no more possibility of frosts in France, though within my memory June frosts have been twice known in Maryland and Virginia. The prolonged frost in May is said to be produced by an understanding between the Ice-Saints and what is called in France La Lune Rousse,—the Red Moon.
IV. Though it needs no prophet to foretell hot weather from June 6 to June 23. M, Quetelet's observations point to June 13 and June 22 as days of exceptionally high temperature.
V. Between July 4 and July 8 comes the hottest day of the summer, which is not to be looked for in the dog-days, which are from July 21 to August 20.