In an article on Kim Philby, Malcom Gladwell has this towards the end:
In his autobiography, “Never Judge a Man by His Umbrella,” Elliott tells the hilarious story of one of his forebears, who was a don at Trinity College in the mid-nineteenth century:
In 1848 he published a thesis entitled Horae Apocalypticae, purporting to prove beyond doubt that the world would come to an end in 1868 because the Euphrates would have dried up the previous year. Harmless enough, you would think. But since he was a man of dominating though eccentric personality he succeeded in persuading the wine committee of Trinity that it would be pointless to lay down any 1853 port because it would not be fit to drink before Judgment Day. As 1853 proved to be one of the best vintages of the century and as Trinity was the only college without any, his name was not remembered with overmuch affection.