58 ROCHESTER ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. | May 26, 
In consequence of the displacement, 20 degrees from the pole, of 
the center about which these belts are arranged, atmospheric conditions 
over Asia and the Pacific are quite different from those in correspond- 
ing latitudes in North America and over the Atlantic. Areas of 
low barometer have less progressive movement in longitude in the 
middle latitudes of the eastern hemisphere than in the western. The 
Pacific, as its name implies, is the calm ocean, while the Atlantic under- 
goes ceaseless agitation from a never ending succession of eastward 
moving storms. 
This belt-like distribution of atmospheric pressure is usually 
ascribed to convection currents generated by the heating up of the 
equatorial regions by the sun. But on the sun himself there is an 
arrangement in belts of the commotions in his atmosphere, although 
there is no heating up of his equatorial regions from an external source. 
Moreover the coronal streamers visible during eclipses have the precise 
form and location that would produce solar anti-cyclonic ridges or belts, 
corresponding to those detected by the aid of the barometer on each 
side of the equator on the earth. 
The solar belts in which spots and facule are most frequent, 
change their location in eleven-year cycles, appearing in higher lati- 
tudes at each fresh increase, and gradually approaching the equator 
until the period of minimum is reached. The atmospheric belts on the 
earth do the same thing, and that too in corresponding years. In the 
case of auroras the relation is reciprocal, they appearing in lower 
latitudes in proportion as sunspots attain higher latitudes. But for 
barometric pressure the relation is direct. Blanford has noted that 
during the years when the average pressure is high in India, as is 
usually the case during sunspot minimum, it is low at St. Petersbug, 
and vice versa. In other words in the same way that the solar corona 
changes its form, and sunspots change their location in eleven year 
periods, there is on the earth a re-arrangement of pressure and conse- 
quent variation in the behaviour of storms and in the location of the 
tracks which they follow. When the solar corona is broad and quad- 
rilateral in form, instead of long and narrow as at times of sunspot 
minimum, the terrestrial anti-cyclonic belts are likewise broadened, 
extending into higher latitudes, and vice versa. 
During the past winter the average atmospheric pressure was 
persistently high over the eastern Gulf States and Cuba, these anti- 
cyclonic conditions being attended by a severe drouth in the latter 
locality. As the result, for reasons that will appear in the course of the 
discussion, there was a diversion northward of storm tracks, and cold 
