( 369 ) 



oni'vc for (lic niiiifjili. This meteorological element aiipeared to me 

 to be a very unsuitable one for comparison on account of its ex- 

 ceedingly large local variations, it might however be of some interest to 

 compare IjRücknkr's curve for severe winters. Further the \'ery few 

 oscillations recorded by Lockykr proved very little, in my opinion, 

 nnless the previous oscillations of the solar activity, though less 

 accurately recorded, agreed at least approximately with the result. 



An investigation in this direction led me to a negative result with 

 reference to the contirmation of Bruckner's climate-|)erio(l, which 

 was suspected l)y Lockykr. Anothei- xQvy surprising result a[)[)eared 

 however, viz. a parallelism (though im{)erfect) between the M — m, 

 curve of solar activity mentioned above and the curve of the frequency 

 of severe winters. 



I do not give these curves here, since they are of no direct further 

 nse. This parallelism suggested however two important conclusions, 

 tu:. 1^^ that the Af — m curve [or preferably the deviations of the 

 maxima and minima of solar activit}^ from their normal positions 

 as determined by Newcomb ^)] could be of great value along with 

 the frequency-curve of sunspots (Relativzahlen), while it appeared at 

 the same time that these deviations are real, at least for the greater 

 part, and 2"^^ that in the records about severe winters we possess 

 a rough but important material from which we can derive a judgment 

 concerning the general course of the weather in the past. 



The parallelism which I found is in this sense that the more 

 severe cold corresponds with the larger number of sunspots (i.e. 

 with the greater solar activity, to retain this term). This does not 

 agree with Sir NoRMA^' Lockyer's views. It is in accordance however 

 Avith the view, Avhich is now generally accepted, that the spots do 

 not represent excessively heated areas. It is also well in keeping 

 with the result of an experiment by Sav^liëf *), and with the con- 

 clusions arrived at b}' Prof. Julius in his solar theory '). 



That the inequalities in the eleven year solar period cannot be 

 attributed in the main to errors of observation had already been 

 indicated by the investigations of Fritz and Loomis on the aurora '') 

 and of Halm on corrections to the inclination of the ecliptic, on the 

 variations of latitude, etc. ^), which show corresponding inequalities. 



^) S. Newcomb. Astiopliys. Journal, XIII, 2 (1901). 

 2) Savéliëf. Comptes rendus T. 118, (1894). 



') W. H. Julius. Archives néerlandaiscs, Série II, Ts. VII, VIII, IX. 

 *) H. Fritz. Das Polarliclil. Leipzig 1881; — E. Loomis, quoted by Halm, A.N. 

 3649. 



5) J. Halm. Aslron. Nachrichten 3G19, 3649; Nature Vol. 62, 1610. 



