28 ROUGH WAYS MADS SMOOTH. 



all. When other records were examined, the striking cir- 

 cumstance was discovered that elsewhere, as at St. Peters- 

 burg, the state of things observed at Oxford was precisely 

 reversed. At some intermediate point between Oxford and 

 St. Petersburg, no doubt the rainfall under the winds named 

 was equally distributed throughout the spot period. More- 

 over, as the conditions thus d ffer at different places, we 

 may assume that they differ also at different times. Such 

 relations appear then to be not only recondite, but com- 

 plicated. 



When we learn that during nearly two entire sun-spot 

 periods cyclones have been somewhat more numerous in the 

 Indian Seas when spots are most numerous than when the 

 sun is without spots, andz/zV<? versa, we recognise the possible 

 existence of cyclic relations better worth knowing than those 

 heretofore mentioned. The evidence is not absolutely 

 decisive ; some, indeed, regard it as scarcely trustworthy. 

 Yet there does seem to have been an excess of cyclonic 

 disturbance during the last two periods of great solar disturb- 

 ance, precisely as there was also an excess of magnetic 

 disturbance during those periods. The excess was scarcely 

 sufficient, however, to justify the rather daring statement 

 made by one observer, that ' the whole question of cyclones 

 is merely a question of solar activity.' We had records of 

 some very remarkable cyclonic disturbances during the 

 years 1876 and 1877, when the sun showed very few spots, 

 the actual minimum of disturbance having probably been 

 reached late in 1877. A prediction that 1877 would be a 

 year of few and slight storms would have proved disastrous 

 if implicit reliance had been placed on it by seamen and 

 travellers. 



Rainfall and atmospheric pressure in India have been 

 found to vary in a cyclic manner, of late years at any rate, 

 the periods being generally about 10 or n years. The 

 activity of the sun, as shown by the existence of many 

 spots, apparently makes more rainfall at Madras, Najpore, 

 and some other places ; while at Calcutta, Bombay, Mysore, 



