492 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



science. Hut, supposing all this had been obtained at the nation's ex- 

 pense, and the promise had been held out that the means of predicting 

 weather would be the reward, the non-scientific tax-paying community 

 might not improbably inquire what was the worth of these discoveries 

 to the nation or to the world at large. Be it understood that I am not 

 here using the cui-bono argument. As a student of science, I utterly 

 repudiate the notion that, before scientific researches are undertaken, 

 it must be shown that they will pay. But it is one thing to adopt 

 this mean and contemptible view of scientific research, and quite an- 

 other to countenance projects which are based ab initio upon the 

 ground that they will more than repay their cost. Now, I think, if 

 the nation made the inquiry above indicated, and under the circum- 

 stances mentioned, it would be very difficult to give a satisfactory 

 reply. The tax-payers would say : " We have supplied so many thou- 

 sands of pounds to found national observatories for the cultivation of 

 the physics of science, and we have paid so many thousands of pounds 

 yearly to the various students of science who have kindly given their 

 services in the management of these observatories ; let us hear what 

 are the utilitarian results of all this outlay. We do not want to hear 

 of scientific discoveries, but of the promised means of predicting the 

 weather." The answer would be : " We have found that storms in the 

 tropics are rather more numerous in some years than others, the varia- 

 tions having a period of eleven years ; we can assert pretty confidently 

 that auroras follow a similar law of frequency ; southwest winds blow 

 more commonly at Oxford but less commonly elsewhere, when the sun- 

 spots, following the eleven-year period, are at a maximum ; and more rain 

 falls with southwesterly winds than with southeasterly winds at Oxford 

 and elsewhere, but less at St. Petersburg and elsewhere, when sun- 

 spots are most numerous, while the reverse holds when the spots are 

 rare." I incline to think that, on being further informed that these 

 results related to averages only, and gave no means of predicting the 

 weather for any given day, week, or month, even as respects the unim- 

 portant points here indicated, the British tax-payer would infer that he 

 had thrown away his money. I imagine that the army of observers who 

 had gathered these notable results would be disbanded rather uncere- 

 moniously, and that for some considerable time science (as connected, 

 at any rate, with promised " utilitarian " results) would stink in the 

 nostrils of the nation. 



But this is very far, indeed, from being all. Nay, we may almost 

 say that this is nothing. Astronomers know the great spot-period ; 

 they have even ascertained the existence of longer and shorter periods 

 less marked in character; and they have ascertained the laws accord- 

 ing to which other solar features besides the spots vary in their nature. 

 It is certain that whatever remains to be discovered must be of a 

 vastly less-marked character. If, then, the discovery of the most 

 striking law of solar change has led to no results having the slightest 



