Under the Weather: Us and the Elements Review

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Under the Weather: Us and the Elements ReviewThere may be better subjects for conversation than the weather, but no more frequent one. It is always essential to quote Mark Twain on the subject, "Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it." This may, of course, no longer be true, since we seem to be changing our climate as time goes on. On the other side of the Atlantic, Dr. Johnson said, "When two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather." Tom Fort, in his book that is about weather in general and British weather in particular, _Under the Weather: Us and the Elements_ (Century), includes this second famous quotation about the weather, but also includes what Johnson said afterwards: "They are in haste to tell each other what each must already know; that it is hot or cold, bright or cloudy, windy or calm." We do the same now, of course, but we can do more, since we can talk about predictions and what the weatherman has told us to expect. Everyone knows how faulty such predictions can be, and criticism of what the weatherman has told us is now part of the conversation. Fort has given a general history of how we came to be able to predict the weather, and to criticize the predictions, in a funny book that is full of eccentric characters historical and contemporary.
"Once, of course," writes Fort of his fellow Britons, "we counted the weather as being one of the favours bestowed on us by a God who regarded us with particular favour among the nations of the world." This idea continues to be prevalent among many, with God's hand being held responsible for the good weather allowing for, say, the Dunkirk evacuation. It was often the rectors of the church that kept records of the natural history of their parishes, and Fort finds the earliest meteorological writings in the daily record kept by William Merle, rector in Driby village between 1337 and 1344. Fort gives a sample of Merle's diary, and remarks, "The outstanding failing of the weather journal as a literary form - its dullness - is amply illustrated by this example." Records like this, however, are fondly cherished, even though lacking any objective measurement, they cannot add to the understanding of weather or weather changes. Weather watchers can now perform their hobby with extensive equipment and objective measures. Even if you have no interest in recording detailed weather observations, you do have an interest about knowing whether to take an umbrella or not. The saddest story in this book is Vice Admiral Robert FitzRoy, who is more famous as the captain of the _Beagle_ that took Darwin on his voyage. (FitzRoy was an ardent creationist whose own book about the voyage maintained that dinosaurs were extinct because they had been too big to get through the door of Noah's Ark.) As a sailor, he knew how vital weather predicting could be, and he worked earnestly to get an inchoate weather reporting and predicting system going. When it proved to be fallible, his work was lumped with that of the cranks and charlatans known as the astrometeorologists, and he was mocked by the newspapers and his peers. He was driven to suicide.
But there are plenty of happier tales here, like the perfectly named Dr. Merryweather who invented the Tempest Prognosticator. Dr. Merryweather (Fort admits he at first thought the name was a hoax, but it is genuine) invented a weather predicting device that in his own words "is worth all the barometers in the world." Doctor Merryweather had his insight when he realized that the documented restlessness of leeches at the approach of wind and rain could be harnessed for the betterment of mankind. His Prognosticator of 1851 housed not one, but twelve leeches (toward whom he was affectionate), each in its own little bottle, each attached to one of twelve hammers that would ring a bell when bad weather approached. The device worked just fine, according to Dr. Merryweather and his supporters, but it was ignored by governmental and academic authorities, and the doctor's enthusiasm waned. However, Fort tells us all is not lost: "Enthusiasts at the Barometer Museum in Devon have recreated a working version, complete with leeches, which they say is extremely reliable." It's just the sort of touch that recurs in an amusing book, full of surprising stories, about a subject of inexhaustible interest.Under the Weather: Us and the Elements OverviewTom Fort, whose writing has been variously described as "jocund," "slightly loopy," '"unbelievably poignant," and "deeply peculiar," travels around Britain experiencing some of its extremer climates and some of its more typical, with a view to explaining the British have made of their weather and what it has made of them. There are two interlocking strands: the story of those who-moved to an exceptional, sometimes obsessive degree by the fascination felt by so many-sought to know and understand the weather; and the story of its impact on history, culture, and ways of thought and behavior. He focuses on the people-the clergymen, the gentlemen of leisure, the crackpots, visionaries, charlatans, and shysters, all now largely or utterly forgotten-who volunteered and toiled for the cause, telling their stories by tracking them down to the places-usually their own gardens-where they indulged their quiet passion for measuring rainfall, scrutinizing dewdrops, tapping their barometers, and peering at their thermometers. Once the age of the amateur scientist was over, and the business of weather forecasting was annexed by professionals with state backing, it became a less colorful affair. The historical strand is, in part, a straightforward chronology; an account of the part played by climate in British history; how, when the sun shone and rain fell in gentle abundance, the nation prospered and multiplied; how, when the climate cooled, bringing wet summers and savage winters, they perished by plague and famine and retreated from places made unbelievable; how in time, as the society matured from a rural, peasant society, the weather became less a matter of life and death (though always an absorbing interest). But beyond that there is another dimension to its influence-the moral and spiritual one. This is contentious, but intriguing: the extent to which the British shape their view of "our weather," and the extent to which it may have shaped the British into the people they are.

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