PEOGEESS IN ASTEONOMY. 147 



Their statement is based on the fact that all the famines which have 

 devastated India for the last seventy years have occurred at intervals 

 of eleven years or thereabouts, M'orking IjackAvard and forward from 

 the central years 1880 and 1885-86 in the above table, the middle 

 years, that is, between the pulses. 



Mr. Willcocks, in a paper read at the Meteorological Congress at 

 Chicago, remarked that ""famines in India are generally 3'ears of low 

 flood in Egypt." 



It is now pointed out that the highest Niles follow the years of the 

 + and — pulses, as does the highest rainfall in the Indian area. 



Even if these results, which were communicated to the Royal Soci- 

 ety of London five weeks before the end of the century, be confirmed, 

 it ma}' be pointed out that Sir William HerscheFs suggestion of 1801 

 will have required a whole century for its fulfillment, so slowly do 

 those branches of science move which have not already led to some 

 practical development. 



