174 SOLAE CHANGES OF TEMPERATURE. 



(5) It has been found from the investigation of the changes in (1) 

 the widened lines, (2) the rainfall of India, and (3) of the Mauritius 

 during and after the last maximum in 1S93 that important variations 

 from those exhibited during and after the last maximum of 1883 

 occurred in all three. 



It may be stated at the same time that the minimum of 1888-89 

 resembled the preceding mininuim of 1878-79, 



(6) It has been found from an investigation of the Nile curves 

 between the years 1849 and 1878 that all the lowest Niles recorded 

 have occurred between the same intervals, 



(7) The relation of the intervals in question to the droughts of 

 Australia and of Cape Colony and to the variations in the rainfall of 

 extratropical regions generally has not yet been investigated. We 

 have found, however, a general agreement between the intervals and 

 the rainfall of Scotland (Buchan), and have traced both pulses in the 

 rainfalls of Cordoba (Davis) and the Cape of Good Hope. 



(8) We have had the opportunity of showing these results to the 

 meteorological reporter to the government of India and director- 

 general of Indian observatories, John Eliot, esq., C. I. E,, F. R. S., 

 who is now in England, and he allows us to state his opinion that they 

 accord closely with all the known facts of the large abnormal features 

 of the temperature, pressure, and rainfall in India during the last 

 twenty -five years, and hence that the inductions already arrived at will 

 be of great service in forecasting future droughts in India. 



Solar Physics Observatory, October 26. 



Addendum. 



Since Meldrum and one of us called attention, in 1872, to a possi1)le 

 connection between sunspots and rainfall, there has been a large liter- 

 ature upon the subject which it is not necessary for us to analyze; it 

 may be simply stated that, in spite of the cogent evidence advanced 

 since, chiefly by Meldrum, and in later years by Mr. Hutchins,^ it is 

 not 3^et generally accepted that a case for the connection has been 

 made out. 



What has been looked for has been a change at maximum sunspots 

 only, the idea being that there might be an efl:'ective change of solar 

 temperature, either in excess or defect, at such times, and that there 

 would be a gradual and continuous variation from maximum to 

 maximum. 



At the same time it is possible that the pressure connection, first 

 advanced by Chambers, is now accepted b}^ meteorologists as a residt 

 of the recent work of Eliot. 



The coincidence, during the last few years, of an abnormal state of 

 the sun with abnormal rain in India, accompanied by the worst famine 



^ "Cycles of Drought and (Jood Seasons in South Africa, 1889." 



