During the last five or six years a section of the scientific world has been exercised with the question how far the condition of the sun’s surface with regard to spots affects our earth’s condition as to weather, and therefore as to those circumstances which are more or less dependent on weather. Unfortunately, the question thus raised has not presented itself alone, but in company with another not so strictly scientific, in fact, regarded by most men of science as closely related to personal considerations—the question, namely, whether certain indicated persons should or should not be commissioned to undertake the inquiry into the scientific problem. But the scientific question itself ought not to be less interesting to us because it has been associated, correctly or not, with the wants and wishes of those who advocate the endowment of science. I propose here to consider the subject in its scientific aspect only, and apart from any bias suggested by the appeals which have been addressed to the administrators of the public funds.

It is hardly necessary to point out, in the first place, that all the phenomena of weather are directly referable to the sun as their governing cause. His rays poured upon our air cause the more important atmospheric currents directly. Indirectly they cause modifications of these currents, because where they fall on water or on moist surfaces they raise aqueous vapour into the air, which, when it returns to the liquid form as cloud, gives up to the surrounding air the heat which had originally vaporized the water. In these29 ways, directly or indirectly, various degrees of pressure and temperature are brought about in the atmospheric envelope of the earth, and, speaking generally, all air currents, from the gentlest zephyr to the fiercest tornado, are the movements by which the equilibrium of the air is restored. Like other movements tending to restore equilibrium, the atmospheric motions are oscillatory. Precisely as when a spring has been bent one way, it flies not back only, but beyond the mean position, till it is almost equally bent the other way, so the current of air which rushes in towards a place of unduly diminished pressure does more than restore the mean pressure, so that presently a return current carries off the excess of air thus carried in. We may say, indeed, that the mean pressure at any place scarcely ever exists, and when it exists for a time the resulting calm is of short duration. Just as the usual condition of the sea surface is one of disturbance, greater or less, so the usual condition of the air at every spot on the earth’s surface is one of motion not of quiescence. Every movement of the air, thus almost constantly perturbed, is due directly or indirectly to the sun.

So also every drop of rain or snow, every particle of liquid or of frozen water in mist or in cloud, owes its birth to the sun. The questions addressed of old to Job, “Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of dew? out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it?” have been answered by modern science, and to every question the answer is, The Sun. He is parent of the snow and hail, as he is of the moist warm rains of summer, of the ice which crowns the everlasting hills, and of the mist which rises from the valleys beneath his morning rays.

Since, then, the snow that clothes the earth in winter as with a garment, and the clouds that in due season drop fatness on the earth, are alike gendered by the sun; since every movement in our air, from the health-bringing breeze to the most destructive hurricane, owns him as its parent; we must at the outset admit, that if there is any body30 external to the earth whose varying aspect or condition can inform us beforehand of changes which the weather is to undergo, the sun is that body. That for countless ages the moon should have been regarded as the great weather-breeder, shows only how prone men are to recognize in apparent changes the true cause of real changes, and how slight the evidence is on which they will base laws of association which have no real foundation in fact. Every one can see when the moon is full, or horned, or gibbous, or half-full; when her horns are directed upwards, or downwards, or sideways. And as the weather is always changing, even as the moon is always changing, it must needs happen that from time to time changes of weather so closely follow changes of the moon as to suggest that the two orders of change stand to each other in the relation of cause and effect. Thus rough rules (such as those which Aratus has handed down to us) came to be formed, and as (to use Bacon’s expression) men mark when such rules hit, and never mark when they miss, a system of weather lore gradually comes into being, which, while in one sense based on facts, has not in reality a particle of true evidence in its favour—every single fact noted for each relation having been contradicted by several unnoted facts opposed to the relation. There could be no more instructive illustration of men’s habits in such matters than the system of lunar weather wisdom in vogue to this day among seamen, though long since utterly disproved by science. But let it be remarked in passing, that in leaving the moon, which has no direct influence, and scarcely any indirect influence, on the weather, for the sun, which is all-powerful, we have not got rid of the mental habits which led men so far astray in former times. We shall have to be specially careful lest it lead us astray yet once more, perhaps all the more readily because of the confidence with which we feel that, at the outset anyway, we are on the right road.

I suppose there must have been a time when men were not altogether certain whether the varying apparent path of31 the sun, as he travels from east to west every day, has any special effect on the weather. It seems so natural to us to recognize in the sun’s greater mid-day elevation and longer continuance above the horizon in summer, the cause of the greater warmth which then commonly prevails, that we find it difficult to believe that men could ever have been in doubt on this subject. Yet it is probable that a long time passed after the position of the sun as ruler of the day had been noticed, before his power as ruler of the seasons was recognized. I cannot at this moment recall any passage in the Bible, for example, in which direct reference is made to the sun’s special influence in bringing about the seasons, or any passage in very ancient writings referring definitely to the fact that the weather changes with the changing position of the sun in the skies (as distinguished from the star-sphere), and with the changing length of the day. “While the earth remaineth,” we are told in Genesis, “seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease;” but there is no reference to the sun’s aspect as determining summer and winter. We find no mention of any of the celestial signs of the seasons anywhere in the Bible, I think, but such signs as are mentioned in the parable of the fig tree—“When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh.” Whether this indicates or not that the terrestrial, rather than the celestial signs of the progress of the year were chiefly noted by men in those times, it is tolerably certain that in the beginning a long interval must have elapsed between the recognition of the seasons themselves, and the recognition of their origin in the changes of the sun’s apparent motions.

When this discovery was effected, men made the most important and, I think, the most satisfactory step towards the determination of cyclic associations between solar and terrestrial phenomena. It is for that reason that I refer specially to the point. In reality, it does not appertain to my subject, for seasons and sun-spots are not associated. But it admirably32 illustrates the value of cyclic relations. Men might have gone on for centuries, we may conceive, noting the recurrence of seed-time and harvest-time, summer and winter, recognizing the periodical returns of heat and cold, and (in some regions) of dry seasons and wet seasons, of calm and storm, and so forth, without perceiving that the sun runs through his changes of diurnal motion in the same cyclic period. We can imagine that some few who might notice the connection between the two orders of celestial phenomena would be anxious to spread their faith in the association among their less observant brethren. They might maintain that observatories for watching the motions of the sun would demonstrate either that their belief was just or that it was not so, would in fact dispose finally of the question. It is giving the most advantageous possible position to those who now advocate the erection of solar observatories for determining what connection, if any, may exist between sun-spots and terrestrial phenomena, thus to compare them to observers who had noted a relation which unquestionably exists. But it is worthy of notice that if those whom I have imagined thus urging the erection of an observatory for solving the question whether the sun rules the seasons, and to some degree regulates the recurrence of dry or rainy, and of calm or stormy weather, had promised results of material value from their observations, they would have promised more than they could possibly have performed. Even in this most favourable case, where the sun is, beyond all question, the efficient ruling body, where the nature of the cyclic change is most exactly determinable, and where even the way in which the sun acts can be exactly ascertained, no direct benefit accrues from the knowledge. The exact determination of the sun’s apparent motions has its value, and this value is great, but it is most certainly not derived from any power of predicting the recurrence of those phenomena which nevertheless depend directly on the sun’s action. The farmer who in any given year knows from the almanac the exact duration of33 daylight, and the exact mid-day elevation of the sun for every day in the year, is not one whit better able to protect his crops or his herds against storm or flood than the tiller of the soil or the tender of flocks a hundred thousand years or so ago, who knew only when seed-time and summer and harvest-time and winter were at hand or in progress.

The evidence thus afforded is by no means promising, then, so far as the prediction of special storms, or floods, or droughts is concerned. It would seem that if past experience can afford any evidence in such matters, men may expect to recognize cycles of weather change long before they recognize corresponding solar cycles (presuming always that such cycles exist), and that they may expect to find the recognition of such association utterly barren, so far as the possibility of predicting definite weather changes is concerned. It would seem that there is no likelihood of anything better than what Sir J. Herschel said might be hoped for hereafter. “A lucky hit may be made; nay, some rude approach to the perception of a ‘cycle of seasons’ may possibly be obtainable. But no person in his senses would alter his plans of conduct for six months in advance in the most trifling particular on the faith of any special prediction of a warm or a cold, a wet or a dry, a calm or a stormy, summer or winter”—far less of a great storm or flood announced for any special day.

But let us see what the cycle association between solar spots and terrestrial weather actually is, or rather of what nature it promises to be, for as yet the true nature of the association has not been made out.

It has been found that in a period of about eleven years the sun’s surface is affected by what may be described as a wave of sun-spots. There is a short time—a year or so—during which scarce any spots are seen; they become more and more numerous during the next four or five years, until they attain a maximum of frequency and size; after this they wane in number and dimensions, until at length, about eleven years from the time when he had before been freest from34 spots, he attains again a similar condition. After this the spots begin to return, gradually attain to a maximum, then gradually diminish, until after eleven more years have elapsed few or none are seen. It must not be supposed that the sun is always free from spots at the time of minimum spot frequency, or that he always shows many and large spots at the time of maximum spot frequency. Occasionally several very large spots, and sometimes singularly large spots, have been seen in the very heart of the minimum spot season, and again there have been occasions when scarcely any spots have been seen for several days in the very heart of the maximum spot season. But, taking the average of each year, the progression of the spots in number and frequency from minimum to maximum, and their decline from maximum to minimum, are quite unmistakeable.

Now there are some terrestrial phenomena which we might expect to respond in greater or less degree to the sun’s changes of condition with respect to spots. We cannot doubt that the emission both of light and of heat is affected by the presence of spots. It is not altogether clear in what way the emission is affected. We cannot at once assume that because the spots are dark the quantity of sunlight must be less when the spots are numerous; for it may well be that the rest of the sun’s surface may at such times be notably brighter than usual, and the total emission of light may be greater on the whole instead of less. Similarly of the emission of heat. It is certain that when there are many spots the surface of the sun is far less uniform in brightness than at other times. The increase of brightness all round the spots is obvious to the eye when the sun’s image, duly enlarged, is received upon a screen in a darkened room. Whether the total emission of light is increased or diminished has not yet been put to the test. Professor Langley, of the Alleghany Observatory, near Pittsburg, U.S., has carefully measured the diminution of the sun’s emission of light and heat on the assumption that the portion of the surface not marked by spots remains unchanged in lustre. But until35 the total emission of light and heat at the times of maximum and minimum has been measured, without any assumption of the kind, we cannot decide the question.

More satisfactory would seem to be the measurements which have been made by Professor Piazzi Smyth, at Edinburgh, and later by the Astronomer Royal at Greenwich, into the underground temperature of the earth. By examining the temperature deep down below the surface, all local and temporary causes of change are eliminated, and causes external to the earth can alone be regarded as effective in producing systematic changes. “The effect is very slight,” I wrote a few years ago, “indeed barely recognizable. I have before me as I write Professor Smyth’s sheet of the quarterly temperatures from 1837 to 1869 at depths of 3, 6, 12, and 24 French feet. Of course the most remarkable feature, even at the depth of 24 feet, is the alternate rise and fall with the seasons. But it is seen that, while the range of rise and fall remains very nearly constant, the crests and troughs of the waves lie at varying levels.” After describing in the essay above referred to, which appears in my “Science Byways,” the actual configuration of the curves of temperature both for seasons and for years, and the chart in which the sun-spot waves and the temperature waves are brought into comparison, I was obliged to admit that the alleged association between the sun-spot period and the changes of underground temperature did not seem to me very clearly made out. It appears, however, there is a slight increase of temperature at the time when the sun-spots are least numerous.

That the earth’s magnetism is affected by the sun’s condition with respect to spots, seems to have been more clearly made out, though it must be noted that the Astronomer Royal considers the Greenwich magnetic observations inconsistent with this theory. It seems to have been rendered at least extremely probable that the daily oscillation of the magnetic needle is greater when spots are numerous than when there are few spots or none. Magnetic36 storms are also more numerous at the time of maximum spot-frequency, and auroras are then more common. (The reader will not fall into the mistake of supposing that magnetic storms have the remotest resemblance to hurricanes, or rainstorms, or hailstorms, or even to thunderstorms, though the thunderstorm is an electrical phenomenon. What is meant by a magnetic storm is simply such a condition of the earth’s frame that the magnetic currents traversing it are unusually strong.)

Thus far, however, we have merely considered relations which we might fairly expect to find affected by the sun’s condition as to spots. A slight change in his total brightness and in the total amount of heat emitted by him may naturally be looked for under circumstances which visibly affect the emission of light, and presumably affect the emission of heat also, from portions of his surface. Nor can we wonder if terrestrial magnetism, which is directly dependent on the sun’s emission of heat, should be affected by the existence of spots upon his surface.

It is otherwise with the effects which have recently been associated with the sun’s condition. It may or may not prove actually to be the case that wind and rain vary in quantity as the sun-spots vary in number (at least when we take in both cases the average for a year, or for two or three years), but it cannot be said that any such relation was antecedently to be expected. When we consider what the sun actually does for our earth, it seems unlikely that special effects such as these should depend on relatively minute peculiarities of the sun’s surface. There is our earth, with her oceans and continents, turning around swiftly on her axis, and exposed to his rays as a whole. Or, inverting the way of viewing matters, there is the sun riding high in the heavens of any region of the earth, pouring down his rays upon that region. We can understand how in the one case that rotating orb of the earth may receive rather more or rather less heat from the sun when he is spotted than when he is not, or how in the other way of viewing matters, that37 orb of the sun may give to any region rather more or rather less heat according as his surface is more or less spotted. But that in special regions of that rotating earth storms should be more or less frequent or rainfall heavier or lighter, as the sun’s condition changes through the exceedingly small range of variation due to the formation of spots, seems antecedently altogether unlikely; and equally unlikely the idea that peculiarities affecting limited regions of the sun’s surface should affect appreciably the general condition of the earth. If a somewhat homely comparison may be permitted, we can well understand how a piece of meat roasting before a fire may receive a greater or less supply of heat on the whole as the fire undergoes slight local changes (very slight indeed they must be, that the illustration may be accurate); but it would be extremely surprising if, in consequence of such slight changes in the fire, the roasting of particular portions of the joint were markedly accelerated or delayed, or affected in any other special manner.

But of course all such considerations as to antecedent probabilities must give way before the actual evidence of observed facts. Utterly inconsistent with all that is yet known of the sun’s physical action, as it may seem, on à priori grounds, to suppose that spots, currents, or other local disturbances of the sun’s surface could produce any but general effects on the earth as a whole, yet if we shall find that particular effects are produced in special regions of the earth’s surface in cycles unmistakably synchronizing with the solar-spot-cycle, we must accept the fact, whether we can explain it or not. Only let it be remembered at the outset that the earth is a large place, and the variations of wind and calm, rain and drought, are many and various in different regions. Whatever place we select for examining the rainfall, for example, we are likely to find, in running over the records of the last thirty years or so, some seemingly oscillatory changes; in the records of the winds, again, we are likely to find other seemingly oscillatory changes; if none of these records provide anything which seems in any way to correspond38 with the solar spot-cycle, we may perchance find some such cycle in the relative rainfall of particular months, or in the varying wetness or dryness of particular winds, and so forth. Or, if we utterly fail to find any such relation in one place we may find it in another, or not improbably in half-a-dozen places among the hundreds which are available for the search. If we are content with imperfect correspondence between some meteorological process or another and the solar-spot cycle, we shall be exceedingly unfortunate indeed if we fail to find a score of illustrative instances. And if we only record these, without noticing any of the cases where we fail to find any association whatever—in other words, as Bacon puts it, if “we note when we hit and never note when we miss,” we shall be able to make what will seem a very strong case indeed. But this is not exactly the scientific method in such cases. By following such a course, indeed, we might prove almost anything. If we take, for instance, a pack of cards, and regard the cards in order as corresponding to the years 1825 to 1877, and note their colours as dealt once, we shall find it very difficult to show that there is any connection whatever between the colours of the cards corresponding to particular years and the number of spots on the sun’s face. But if we repeat the process a thousand times, we shall find certain instances among the number, in which red suits correspond to all the years when there are many spots on the sun, and black suits to all the years when there are few spots on the sun. If now we were to publish all such deals, without mentioning anything at all about the others which showed no such association, we should go far to convince a certain section of the public that the condition of the sun as to spots might hereafter be foretold by the cards; whence, if the public were already satisfied that the condition of the sun specially affects the weather of particular places, it would follow that the future weather of these places might also be foretold by the cards.

I mention this matter at the outset, because many who are anxious to find some such cycle of seasons as Sir John39 Herschel thought might be discovered, have somewhat overlooked the fact that we must not hunt down such a cycle per fas et nefas. “Surely in meteorology as in astronomy,” Mr. Lockyer writes, for instance, “the thing to hunt down is a cycle, and if that is not to be found in the temperate zone, then go to the frigid zones or the torrid zone to look for it; and if found, then above all things and in whatever manner, lay hold of, study, and read it, and see what it means.” There can be no doubt that this is the way to find a cycle, or at least to find what looks like a cycle, but the worth of a cycle found in this way will be very questionable.7

I would not have it understood, however, that I consider all the cycles now to be referred to as unreal, or even that the supposed connection between them and the solar cycle has no existence. I only note that there are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of relations among which cycles may be looked for, and that there are perhaps twenty or thirty cases in which some sort of cyclic association between certain meteorological relations and the period of the solar spots presents itself. According to the recognized laws of probability, some at least amongst these cases must be regarded as accidental. Some, however, may still remain which are not accidental.

Among the earliest published instances may be mentioned Mr. Baxendell’s recognition of the fact that during a certain series of years, about thirty, I think, the amount of rainfall at Oxford was greater under west and south-west winds than under south and south-east winds when sun-spots were most numerous, whereas the reverse held in years when there were no spots or few. Examining the meteorological records of40 St. Petersburg, he found that a contrary state of things prevailed there.

The Rev. Mr. Main, Director of the Radcliffe Observatory at Oxford, found that westerly winds were slightly more common (as compared with other winds) when sun-spots were numerous than when they were few.

Mr. Meldrum, of Mauritius, has made a series of statistical inquiries into the records of cyclones which have traversed the Indian Ocean between the equator and 34 degrees south latitude, in each year from 1856 to 1877, noting the total distances traversed by each, the sums of their radii and areas, their duration in days, the sums of their total areas, and their relative areas. His researches, be it marked in passing, are of extreme interest and value, whether the suggested connection between sun-spots and cyclones (in the region specified) be eventually found to be a real one or not. The following are his results, as described in Nature by a writer who manifestly favours very strongly the doctrine that an intimate association exists between solar maculation (or spottiness) and terrestrial meteorological phenomena:—

“The period embraces two complete, or all but complete, sun-spot periods, the former beginning with 1856 and ending in 1867, and the latter extending from 1867 to about the present time [1877]. The broad result is that the number of cyclones, the length and duration of their courses, and the extent of the earth’s surface covered by them all, reach the maximum in each sun-spot period during the years of maximum maculation, and fall to the minimum during the years of minimum maculation. The peculiar value of these results lies in the fact that the portion of the earth’s surface over which this investigation extends, is, from its geographical position and what may be termed its meteorological homogeneity, singularly well fitted to bring out prominently any connection that may exist between the condition of the sun’s surface and atmospheric phenomena.”

The writer proceeds to describe an instance in which41 Mr. Meldrum predicted future meteorological phenomena, though without specifying the exact extent to which Mr. Meldrum’s anticipations were fulfilled or the reverse. “A drought commenced in Mauritius early in November,” he says, “and Mr. Meldrum ventured (on December 21) to express publicly his opinion that probably the drought would not break up till towards the end of January, and that it might last till the middle of February, adding that up to these dates the rainfall of the island would probably not exceed 50 per cent. of the mean fall. This opinion was an inference grounded on past observations, which show that former droughts have lasted from about three to three and a half months, and that these droughts have occurred in the years of minimum sun-spots, or, at all events, in years when the spots were far below the average, such as 1842, 1843, 1855, 1856, 1864, 1866, and 1867, and that now we are near the minimum epoch of sun-spots. It was further stated that the probability of rains being brought earlier by a cyclone was but slight, seeing that the season for cyclones is not till February or March, and that no cyclone whatever visited Mauritius during 1853–56 and 1864–67, the years of minimum sun-spots. From the immense practical importance of this application of the connection between sun-spots and weather to the prediction of the character of the weather of the ensuing season, we shall look forward with the liveliest interest to a detailed statement of the weather which actually occurred in that part of the Indian Ocean from November to March last [1876].”

It was natural that the great Indian famine, occurring at a time when sun-spots were nearly at a minimum, should by some be directly associated with a deficiency of sun-spots. In this country, indeed, we have had little reason, during the last two or three years of few sun-spots, to consider that drought is one of the special consequences to be attributed to deficient solar maculation. But in India it may be different, or at least it may be different in Madras, for it has been satisfactorily proved that in some parts of India the42 rainfall increases in inverse, not in direct proportion, to the extent of solar maculation. Dr. Hunter has shown to the satisfaction of many that at Madras there is “a cycle of rainfall corresponding with the period of solar maculation.” But Mr. E. D. Archibald, who is also thoroughly satisfied that the sun-spots affect the weather, remarks that Dr. Hunter has been somewhat hasty in arguing that the same conditions apply throughout the whole of Southern India. “This hasty generalization from the results of one station situated in a vast continent, the rainfall of which varies completely, both in amount and the season in which it falls, according to locality, has been strongly contested by Mr. Blanford, the Government Meteorologist, who, in making a careful comparison of the rainfalls of seven stations, three of which (Madras, Bangalore, and Mysore) are in Southern India, the others being Bombay, Najpore, Jubbulpore, and Calcutta, finds that, with the exception of Najpore in Central India, which shows some slight approach to the same cyclical variation which is so distinctly marked in the Madras registers, the rest of the stations form complete exceptions to the rule adduced for Madras, in many of them the hypothetical order of relation being reversed. Mr. Blanford, however, shows that, underlying the above irregularities, a certain cyclical variation exists on the average at all the stations, the amount, nevertheless, being so insignificant (not more than 9 per cent. of the total falls) that it could not be considered of sufficient magnitude to become a direct factor in the production of famine. It thus appears that the cycle of rainfall which is considered to be the most important element in causing periodic famines has only been proved satisfactorily for the town of Madras. It may perhaps hold for the Carnatic and Northern Siccars, the country immediately surrounding Madras, though perhaps, owing to the want of rainfall registers in these districts, evidence with regard to this part is still wanting.” On this Mr. Archibald proceeds to remark that, though Dr. Hunter has been only partially successful, the value of his43 able pamphlet is not diminished in any way, “an indirect effect of which has been to stimulate meteorological inquiry and research in the same direction throughout India. The meteorology of this country (India), from its peculiar and tropical position, is in such complete unison with any changes that may arise from oscillations in the amount of solar radiation, and their effects upon the velocity and direction of the vapour-bearing winds, that a careful study of it cannot fail to discover meteorological periodicities in close connection with corresponding periods of solar disturbance.” So, indeed, it would seem.

The hope that famines may be abated, or, at least, some of their most grievous consequences forestalled by means of solar observatories, does not appear very clearly made out. Rather it would seem that the proper thing to do is to investigate the meteorological records of different Indian regions, and consider the resulting evidence of cyclic changes without any special reference to sun-spots; for if sun-spots may cause drought in one place, heavy rainfall in another, winds here and calms there, it seems conceivable that the effects of sun-spots may differ at different times, as they manifestly do in different places.

Let us turn, however, from famines to shipwrecks. Perhaps, if we admit that cyclones are more numerous, and blow more fiercely, and range more widely, even though it be over one large oceanic region only, in the sun-spot seasons than at other times, we may be assured, without further research, that shipwrecks will, on the whole, be more numerous near the time of sun-spot maxima than near the time of sun-spot minima.

The idea that this may be so was vaguely shadowed forth in a poem of many stanzas, called “The Meteorology of the Future: a Vision,” which appeared in Nature for July 5, 1877. I do not profess to understand precisely what the object of this poem may have been—I mean, whether it is intended to support or not the theory that sun-spots influence the weather. Several stanzas are very44 humorous, but the object of the humour is not manifest. The part referred to above is as follows:—Poor Jack lies at the bottom of the sea in 1881, and is asked in a spiritual way various questions as to the cause of his thus coming to grief. This he attributed to the rottenness of the ship in which he sailed, to the jobbery of the inspector, to the failure of the system of weather telegraphing, and so forth. But, says the questioner, there was one
“In fame to none will yield, He led the band who reaped renown On India’s famine field.
“Was he the man to see thee die? Thou wilt not tax him—come? The dead man groaned—‘I met my death Through a sun-spot maximum.’”

The first definite enunciation, however, of a relation between sun-spots and shipwrecks appeared in September, 1876. Mr. Henry Jeula, in the Times for September 19, stated that Dr. Hunter’s researches into the Madras rainfall had led him to throw together the scanty materials available relating to losses posted on Lloyd’s loss book, to ascertain if any coincidences existed between the varying number of such losses and Dr. Hunter’s results. “For,” he proceeds, “since the cycle of rainfall at Madras coincides, I am informed, with the periodicity of the cyclones in the adjoining Bay of Bengal” (a relation which is more than doubtful) “as worked out by the Government Astronomer at Mauritius” (whose researches, however, as we have seen, related to a region remote from the Bay of Bengal), “some coincidence between maritime casualties, rainfalls, and sun-spots appeared at least possible.” In passing, I may note that if any such relation were established, it would be only an extension of the significance of the cycle of cyclones, and could have no independent value. It would certainly follow, if the cycle of cyclones is made out, that shipwrecks being more numerous, merchants would suffer, and we should45 have the influence of the solar spots asserting itself in the Gazette. From the cyclic derangement of monetary and mercantile matters, again, other relations also cyclic in character would arise. But as all these may be inferred from the cycle of cyclones once this is established, we could scarcely find in their occurrence fresh evidence of the necessity of that much begged-for solar observatory. The last great monetary panic in this country, by the way, occurred in 1866, at a time of minimum solar maculation. Have we here a decisive proof that the sun rules the money market, the bank rate of discount rising to a maximum as the sun-spots sink to a minimum, and vice versa? The idea is strengthened by the fact that the American panic in 1873 occurred when spots were very numerous, and its effects have steadily subsided as the spots have diminished in number; for this shows that the sun rules the money market in America on a principle diametrically opposed to that on which he (manifestly) rules the money market in England, precisely as the spots cause drought in Calcutta and plenteous rainfall at Madras, wet south-westers and dry south-westers at Oxford, and wet south-easters and dry south-easters at St. Petersburg. Surely it would be unreasonable to refuse to recognize the weight of evidence which thus tells on both sides at once.

To return, however, to the sun’s influence upon shipwrecks.

Mr. Jeula was “only able to obtain data for two complete cycles of eleven years, namely, from 1855 to 1876 inclusive, while the period investigated by Dr. Hunter extended from 1813 to 1876, and his observations related to Madras and its neighbourhood only, while the losses posted at Lloyd’s occurred to vessels of various countries, and happened in different parts of the world. It was necessary to bring these losses to some common basis of comparison, and the only available one was the number of ‘British registered vessels of the United Kingdom and Channel Islands’—manifestly an arbitrary one. I consequently cast46 out the percentage of losses posted each year upon the number of registered vessels for the same year, and also the percentage of losses posted in each of the eleven years of the two cycles upon the total posted in each complete cycle, thus obtaining two bases of comparison independent of each other.”

The results may be thus presented:—

Taking the four years of each cycle when sun-spots were least in number, Mr. Jeula found the mean percentage of losses in registered vessels of the United Kingdom and Channel Islands to be 11·13, and the mean percentage of losses in the total posted in the entire cycle of eleven years to be 8·64.

In the four years when sun-spots were intermediate in number, that is in two years following the minimum and in two years preceding the minimum, the respective percentages were 11·91 and 9·21.

Lastly, in the three years when sun-spots were most numerous, these percentages were, respectively, 12·49 and 9·53.

That the reader may more clearly understand what is meant here by percentages, I explain that while the numbers 11·13, 11·91 and 12·49 simply indicate the average number of wrecks (per hundred of all the ships registered) which occurred in the several years of the eleven-years cycle, the other numbers, 8·64, 19·21, and 9·53, indicate the average number of wrecks (per hundred of wrecks recorded) during eleven successive years, which occurred in the several years of the cycle. The latter numbers seem more directly to the purpose; and as the two sets agree pretty closely, we may limit our attention to them.

Now I would in the first place point out that it would have been well if the actual number or percentage had been indicated for each year of the cycle, instead of for periods of four years, four years, and three years. Two eleven-year cycles give in any case but meagre evidence, and it would have been well if the evidence had been given as fully as47 possible. If we had a hundred eleven-yearly cycles, and took the averages of wrecks for the four years of minimum solar maculation, the four intermediate years, and the three years of maximum maculation, we might rely with considerable confidence on the result, because accidental peculiarities one way or the other could be eliminated. But in two cycles only, such peculiarities may entirely mask any cyclic relation really existing, and appear to indicate a relation which has no real existence. If the percentages had been given for each year, the effect of such peculiarities would doubtless still remain, and the final result would not be more trustworthy than before; but we should have a chance of deciding whether such peculiarities really exist or not, and also of determining what their nature may be. As an instance in point, let me cite a case where, having only the results of a single cycle, we can so arrange them as to appear to indicate a cyclic association between sun-spots and rainfall, while, when we give them year by year, such an association is discredited, to say the least.

The total rainfall at Port Louis, between the years 1855 and 1868 inclusive, is as follows:—
In     Rainfall.     Condition of Sun.
1855     42·665     inches     Sun-spot minimum.
1856     46·230     ?
1857     43·445     ?
1858     35·506     ?
1859     56·875     ?
1860     45·166     ?     Sun-spot maximum.
1861     68·733     ?
1862     28·397     ?
1863     33·420     ?
1864     24·147     ?
1865     44·730     ?
1866     20·571     ?     Sun-spot minimum.
1867     35·970     ?
1868     64·180     ?

I think no one, looking at these numbers as they stand, can recognize any evidence of a cyclic tendency. If we represent the rainfall by ordinates we get the accompanying48 figure, which shows the rainfall for eighteen years, and again I think it may be said that a very lively imagination is required to recognize anything resembling that wave-like undulation which the fundamental law of statistics requires where a cycle is to be made out from a single oscillation. Certainly the agreement between the broken curve of rainfall and the sun-spot curve indicated by the waved dotted line is not glaringly obvious. But when we strike an average for the rainfall, in the way adopted by Mr. Jeula for shipwrecks, how pleasantly is the theory of sun-spot influence illustrated by the Port Louis rainfall! Here is the result, as quoted by the high-priest of the new order of diviners, from the papers by Mr. Meldrum:—
Three minimum years—total rainfall     133·340
Three maximum years—total rainfall     170·774
Three minimum years—total rainfall     120·721

Nothing could be more satisfactory, but nothing, I venture to assert, more thoroughly inconsistent with the true method of statistical research.

49 May it not be that, underlying the broad results presented by Mr. Jeula, there are similar irregularities?

When we consider that the loss of ships depends, not only on a cause so irregularly variable (to all seeming) as wind-storms, but also on other matters liable to constant change, as the variations in the state of trade, the occurrence of wars and rumours of wars, special events, such as international exhibitions, and so forth, we perceive that an even wider range of survey is required to remove the effects of accidental peculiarities in their case, than in the case of rainfall, cyclones, or the like. I cannot but think, for instance, that the total number of ships lost in divers ways during the American war, and especially in its earlier years (corresponding with two of the three maximum years of sun-spots) may have been greater, not merely absolutely but relatively, than in other years. I think it conceivable, again, that during the depression following the great commercial panic of 1866 (occurring at a time of minimum solar maculation, as already noticed) the loss of ships may have been to some degree reduced, relatively as well as absolutely. We know that when trade is unusually active many ships have sailed, and perhaps may still be allowed to sail (despite Mr. Plimsoll’s endeavours), which should have been broken up; whereas in times of trade depression the ships actually afloat are likely to be, on the average, of a better class. So also, when, for some special reason, passenger traffic at sea is abnormally increased. I merely mention these as illustrative cases of causes not (probably) dependent on sun-spots, which may (not improbably) have affected the results examined by Mr. Jeula. I think it possible that those results, if presented for each year, would have indicated the operation of such causes, naturally masked when sets of four years, four years, and three years are taken instead of single years.

I imagine that considerations such as these will have to be taken into account and disposed of before it will be unhesitatingly admitted that sun-spots have any great effect in increasing the number of shipwrecks.

50 The advocates of the doctrine of sun-spot influence—or, perhaps it would be more correct to say, the advocates of the endowment of sun-spot research—think differently on these and other points. Each one of the somewhat doubtful relations discussed above is constantly referred to by them as a demonstrated fact, and a demonstrative proof of the theory they advocate. For instance, Mr. Lockyer, in referring to Meldrum’s statistical researches into the frequency of cyclones, does not hesitate to assert that according to these researches “the whole question of cyclones is merely a question of solar activity, and that if we wrote down in one column the number of cyclones in any given year, and in another column the number of sun-spots in any given year, there will be a strict relation between them—many sun-spots, many hurricanes; few sun-spots, few hurricanes.” ... And again, “Mr. Meldrum has since found” (not merely “has since found reason to believe,” but definitely, “has since found”) “that what is true of the storms which devastate the Indian Ocean is true of the storms which devastate the West Indies; and on referring to the storms of the Indian Ocean, Mr. Meldrum points out that at those years where we have been quietly mapping the sun-spot maxima, the harbours were filled with wrecks, and vessels coming in disabled from every part of the Indian Ocean.” Again, Mr. Balfour Stewart accepts Mr. Jeula’s statistics confidently as demonstrating that there are most shipwrecks during periods of maximum solar activity. Nor are the advocates of the new method of prediction at all doubtful as to the value of these relations in affording the basis of a system of prediction. They do not tell us precisely how we are to profit by the fact, if fact it is, that cyclones and shipwrecks mark the time of maximum solar maculation, and droughts and famine the time of minimum. “If we can manage to get at these things,” says Mr. Lockyer, “the power of prediction, that power which would be the most useful one in meteorology, if we could only get at it, would be within our grasp.” And Mr. Balfour Stewart, in a letter to the Times, says, “If we are on51 the track of a discovery which will in time enable us to foretell the cycle of droughts, public opinion should demand that the investigation be prosecuted with redoubled vigour and under better conditions. If forewarned be forearmed, then such research will ultimately conduce to the saving of life both at times of maximum and minimum sun-spot frequency.”

If these hopes are really justified by the facts of the case, it would be well that the matter should be as quickly as possible put to the test. No one would be so heartless, I think, as to reject, through an excess of scientific caution, a scheme which might issue in the saving of many lives from famine or from shipwreck. And on the other hand, no one, I think, would believe so ill of his fellow-men as to suppose for one moment that advantage could be taken of the sympathies which have been aroused by the Indian famine, or which may from time to time be excited by the record of great disasters by sea and land, to advocate bottomless schemes merely for purposes of personal advancement. We must now, perforce, believe that those who advocate the erection of new observatories and laboratories for studying the physics of the sun, have the most thorough faith in the scheme which they proffer to save our Indian population from famine and our seamen from shipwreck.

But they, on the other hand, should now also believe that those who have described the scheme as entirely hopeless, do really so regard it. If we exonerate them from the charge of responding to an appeal for food by offering spectroscopes, they in turn should exonerate us from the charge of denying spectroscopes to the starving millions of India though knowing well that the spectroscopic track leads straight to safety.

I must acknowledge I cannot for my own part see even that small modicum of hope in the course suggested which would suffice to justify its being followed. In my opinion, one ounce of rice would be worth more (simply because it would be worth something) than ten thousand tons of spectroscopes.52 For what, in the first place, has been shown as to the connection between meteorological phenomena and sun-spots? Supposing we grant, and it is granting a great deal, that all the cycles referred to have been made out. They one and all affect averages only. The most marked among them can so little be trusted in detail that while the maximum of sun-spots agrees in the main with an excess or defect of rain or wind, or of special rains with special winds, or the like, the actual year of maximum may present the exact reverse.

Of what use can it be to know, for instance, that the three years of least solar maculation will probably give a rainfall less than that for the preceding or following three years, if the middle year of the three, when the spots are most numerous of all, may haply show plenteous rainfall? Or it may be the first of the three, or the last, which is thus well supplied, while a defect in the other two, or in one of the others, brings the total triennial rainfall below the average. What provision could possibly be made under such circumstances to meet a contingency which may occur in any one of three years? or, at least, what provision could be made which would prove nearly so effective as an arrangement which could readily be made for keeping sufficient Government stores at suitable stations (that is, never allowing such stores to fall at the critical season in each year below a certain minimum), and sending early telegraphic information of unfavourable weather? Does any one suppose that the solar rice-grains are better worth watching for such a purpose than the terrestrial rice-grains, or that it is not well within the resources of modern science and modern means of communication and transport, to make sufficient preparation each year for a calamity always possible in India? And be it noticed that if, on the one hand, believers in solar safety from famine may urge that, in thus objecting to their scheme, I am opposing what might, in some year of great famine and small sun-spots, save the lives of a greater number than would be saved by any system of terrestrial watchfulness, I would point out, on the other, that the solar scheme, if it means anything at all,53 means special watchfulness at the minimum sun-spot season, and general confidence (so far as famine is concerned) at the season of maximum solar maculation; and that while as yet nothing has been really proved about the connection between sun-spots and famine, such confidence might prove to be a very dangerous mistake.

Supposing even it were not only proved that sun-spots exert such and such effects, but that this knowledge can avail to help us to measures of special precaution, how is the study of the sun going to advance our knowledge? In passing, let it be remarked that already an enormous number of workers are engaged in studying the sun in every part of the world. The sun is watched on every fine day, in every quarter of the earth, with the telescope, analyzed with the spectroscope, his prominences counted and measured, his surface photographed, and so forth. What more ought to be or could be done? But that is not the main point. If more could be done, what could be added to our knowledge which would avail in the way of prediction? “At present,” says Mr. Balfour Stewart, “the problem has not been pursued on a sufficiently large scale or in a sufficient number of places. If the attack is to be continued, the skirmishers should give way to heavy guns, and these should be brought to bear without delay now that the point of attack is known.” In other words, now that we know, according to the advocates of these views, that meteorological phenomena follow roughly the great solar-spot period, we should prosecute the attack in this direction, in order to find out—what? Minor periods, perhaps, with which meteorological phenomena may still more roughly synchronize. Other such periods are already known with which meteorological phenomena have never yet been associated. New details of the sun’s surface? No one has yet pretended that any of the details already known, except the spots, affect terrestrial weather, and the idea that peculiarities so minute as hitherto to have escaped detection can do so, is as absurd, on the face of it, as the supposition that minute details in the structure of a burning54 coal, such details as could only be detected by close scrutiny, can affect the general quality and effects of the heat transmitted by the coal, as part of a large fire, to the further side of a large room.

Lastly, I would urge this general argument against a theory which seems to me to have even less to recommend it to acceptance than the faith in astrology.8 If it requires,55 as we are so strongly assured, the most costly observations, the employment of the heaviest guns (and “great guns” are generally expensive), twenty or thirty years of time, and the closest scrutiny and research, to prove that sun-spots affect terrestrial relations in a definite manner, effects so extremely difficult to demonstrate cannot possibly be important enough to be worth predicting.