THE GALE OF THE 19th MAY, 1863.

To THE EDITOR.—SIR,—I am desirous to utilize this gale by a few words for future benefit.

No winds are more difficult to foretell accurately than north-easterly, because the barometer rises, or is rather high, before they blow, even when accompanied by rain.

The thermometer at such times is a good guide as to direction of the coming wind, because lower than usual at the season; but its strength has not been foretold with sufficient accuracy in general.

This last north-easter did not much affect the northern and eastern coasts of Scotland and England, or the northernmost parts of Ireland, but it blew, furiously at times, from Norfolk to the Severn, to South and East Ireland, in the Channel, and on the north coasts of France.

At the same time a strong south-west gale was blowing across Spain and over the Balearic Islands to Barcelona.

Within France, along our Channel, and in South England, heavy rain, thunder, I lightning, and violent winds prevailed, at I many places irregularly, between Monday midnight of the 18th and Tuesday afternoon of the 19th of May. Obviously a meeting and collision of the two principal currents of air occasioned these disturbances; and a chief object of this communication now is to draw attention to the fact, demonstrated by large series of observations in both hemispheres, that the moon's extreme positions (in declination, conjunction, perigee, &c.) have very remarkable correspondence with the greatest disturbances of our atmosphere.

By "extreme positions" are meant the moon's orbital places, which vary so much in a lunar cycle of four weeks, and not the phase of the moon solely as seen.

Further remarks would be inappropriate here, beyond perhaps advising seamen to notice such periods, in either hemisphere, as being more liable than other times to irregular and unsettled weather, if not to storms—which, however, are but occasional exceptions, even in the middle or higher I latitudes.—I am, &c.

I R. FitzRoY.