’Tis time to cock your hay and corn
When the old donkey blows his horn.
Barometer.—There is no instrument now more generally used for ascertaining the coming weather than the barometer. It may however be remarked, that it is more from its rising or falling, than from its height or lowness, that we are to infer fair or foul weather. Generally speaking, the rising of the mercury presages clear fair weather, and its falling, foul weather, as rain, snow, high winds, and storms.
In very hot weather, the falling of the mercury indicates thunder.
In winter, the rising indicates frost, and in frosty weather, if the mercury fall three or four divisions, there will follow a thaw; but in a continued frost, if the mercury rise, it will snow.
When foul weather happens soon after the falling of the mercury, expect but little of it; and, on the contrary, expect but little fair weather when it proves fair shortly after the mercury has risen.
In foul weather, when the mercury rises much and high, and so continues for two or three days before the foul weather is quite over, then expect a continuance of fair weather to follow.
In fair weather, when the mercury falls much and low, and thus continues for two or three days before the rain comes, then expect a great deal of wet, and probably high winds.
The unsettled motion of the mercury denotes uncertain and changeable weather.
The words engraved on the register plate of the barometer, it may be observed, cannot be strictly relied upon to correspond exactly with the state of the weather; though it will in general agree with them as to the mercury rising and falling.