Abstract
IN the year 1508 a book was published in Germany under the title of the “Bauern-Pracktik.”This book had a wide circulation. It taught the farmer, the sailor, the merchant—all, indeed, who were interested in the weather—what would be its character, not only for the coming year, but in all future years. This book, with its many editions and translations, has now become very scarce, and a facsimile copy of the original has been reproduced by Prof. Hellmann, who, with the affection of the ardent bibliographer, has traced it with infinite difficulty through many libraries and into many unexpected places. To this little book, which consists of only eight or nine pages, the editor has added an introduction of some seventy, bearing the same relation to the original work that Falstaff's sack did to his bread. And just as Falstaff found his bread an unwelcome addition, so these last few pages are a hard nut to those who have not made a critical study of the German of the fifteenth century. But Prof. Hellmann's introduction gives great assistance, and by the help of it we have made out some of the rules and predictions, which appear quite as trustworthy as the prognostications that our modern weather prophets circulate, and in which no doubt they find their account.
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Old World Meteorology1. Nature 54, 329–330 (1896). https://doi.org/10.1038/054329a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/054329a0