26 ROUGH WAYS MADE SMOOTH. 



SUN-SPOTS AND COMMERCIAL 

 PANICS. 



WE are not only, it would seem, to regard the sun as the 

 ultimate source of all forms of terrestrial energy, existent 

 or potential, but as regulating in a much more special 

 manner the progress of mundane events. Many years have 

 passed since Sabine, Wolf, and Gauthier asserted that varia- 

 tions in the daily oscillations of the magnetic needle appear 

 to synchronise with the changes taking place in the sun's 

 condition, the oscillations attaining their maximum average 

 range in years when the sun shows most spots, and their 

 minimum range when there are fewest spots. And although 

 it is well known that the Astronomer Royal in England and 

 the President of the Academy of Sciences in France reject 

 this doctrine, it still remains in vogue. True, the average 

 magnetic period appears to be about 10.45 years, while 

 Wolf obtains for the sun-spot period ii.n years; but 

 believers in the connection between terrestrial magnetic 

 disturbances and sun-spots consider that among the imper- 

 fect records of the past condition of the sun Wolf must 

 have lost sight of one particular wave of sun-spots, so to 

 speak. If there rnve been 24 such waves between 1611 and 

 1877, when sun-spots were fewest, we get Wolfs period of 

 1 1. 1 1 years ; if there have been 25 such waves then, taking 

 an admissible estimate for the earliest epoch, we get 1045 

 years, the period required to synchronise with the period of 

 terrestrial magnetic changes. The matter must be regarded 



