6oo 



NATURE 



[October 22, 1903 



Our Winters in Relation to Briickner's Cycle. 



It was said in Bacon's time that every tiiirty-five years 

 " the same kind of suite of years and weathers comes about 

 again " (see his essay " Of Vicissitude of Things "), and 

 the important researches of Bruckner on this subject are 

 now receiving considerable attention. 



The value, 35 years, as used by Bruckner, is, of course, 

 an average. The interval from centre to centre of his 

 cold and wet periods (or the opposite) is sometimes as much 

 as 40, sometimes as little as 30. It has been noted, further, 

 that 35 is very nearly three times the sun-spot cycle of ii-i 

 years. 



Now if we look into the variation of certain weather- 

 elements at Greenwich since 1841, it may, I think, be truly 

 said to-day that the same kind of weather has come round 

 again after about 33 years. Let us take e.g. our winter 

 seasons as measured by the total number of frost days from 

 September to May. 



In the upper curve of the diagram herewith, each year 

 point represents the sum of frost days in five winters so 

 understood ; the first (1844) for winters ending 1842-46, the 

 second, winters ending 1843-47, ^"^ ^^ on. 



Similarly, in the lower curve, each point represents a 

 five-winter group, but thirty-three years later, commencing 



i^^'-y '^ '3 -6 'f '61^'-^ ^ 



?r i TT I r 



(Sy-p'So '-3 '<b '<^ '92_ ^ 's b\ 



Curve showing the variation of frost days from five-year sums for the 

 pstiod 1842— 1902. 



with 1877, and ending with 1901 (which includes last 

 winter). 



There is obviously a general correspondence between 

 these curves ; high values in one matched with high values 

 in the other, and low with low. Twenty-five pairs of values 

 being thus compared, there are only four in which the 

 members of the pair are on opposite sides of the average 

 line (273). 



Again, we have, in general. 



Diminishing cold 

 Increasing cold 

 Diminishing co'd 



1846-51 (5 years) 



. ) 



[879-83 (4 

 1851-56(5 ., ) 

 1881-89(6 ,, ) 

 1856-64 (8 

 1889-98 (9 



From these last dates there is a rise. 



The earlier curve might thus be considered a kind of 



programme for the series of winters commencing 33 years 



after the first. It will be interesting, I think, to see 

 how far it continues to be so in the future. 



The winters about 1856 and 1889 appear to have been 

 conspicuously cold times. We might, perhaps, anticipate 

 another such time in the early 'twenties, the curve not 

 rising so high between, though, of course, individual 

 winters might be very severe. This seems to be suggested 

 by the course of the curve after 1868, but the corre- 

 spondence may perhaps fail. 



Other examples of such recurrence, corresponding more 

 or less closely, might be given. The long record of 

 Rothesay rainfall (from 1800) will be found worth treatment 

 in this way; conspicuously dry times occur about 1822, 

 1855, and 1887, and the smoothed curve from 1835 to date 

 may be said to repeat in its main features that from 1802 

 to 1867. Alex. B. MacDowall. 



An Ant Robbed by a Lizard. 



The following account of the robbery from an ant by a 

 lizard may interest some of your readers. 



While walking along the main road on the outskirts of 

 Bordighera yesterday morning, I noticed a strange-looking 

 insect moving across it in a peculiar way. On getting 

 nearer, I saw that what had attracted my notice was a 

 black ant — about an inch long with brown wings — dragging 

 a cricket bigger than itself. It held the cricket by the 

 head, and as the ant moved backwards it drew the cricket 

 towards it. While doing so it entered the shadow cast by 

 my umbrella, and instantly released its hold and got out 

 of the shadow, but finding there was no danger it returned 

 and seized its prey again by the head, and recommenced 

 its backward movement. A low wall ran alongside the 

 read, and when the ant got within six feet of it a common 

 brown lizard appeared on the top of the wall and evidently 

 soon caught sight of the ant, for it ran quickly down the 

 wall and to within two feet of it, when it crouched for a 

 second or two like a cat ready to spring, and then charged 

 the ant, apparently butting the cricket free with its head. 

 Before the ant could regain its hold the lizard seized the 

 cricket in its mouth, and darted up the wall in the direction 

 from which it originally appeared on the scene, leaving the 

 ant running round and round, moving its wings in an 

 agitated manner, vainly searching for its lost prey. 



J. W. Stack. 



Villa Mona, Bordighera, September i. 



T 



A NEW MECHANICAL THEORY OF THE 

 yETHER.^ 

 HIS memoir was communicated to the Royal 

 Society in February, 1902, and has now been 

 issued in the dual form of a contribution to the Philo- 

 sophical Transactions and a volume of Prof. Osborne 

 Reynolds's collected papers. 



It may safely be described as one of the most re- 

 markable atternpts that have been made of recent years 

 to formulate a dynamical system capable of account- 

 ing- for all physical phenomena at present known. A 

 theory such as is here set forth may not improbably 

 play the same part in modern science that was assumed 

 by the atomic theory and the kinetic theory of gases 

 in the science of the time when these theories were 

 propounded.- 



If we suppose the ultimate particles — Prof. Reynolds 

 calls them " g^rains " — constituting- the material uni- 

 verse to be either spheres, or what comes to the same 

 thing, point atoms behaving in the same manner as 

 uniform smooth spheres, then it is impossible to assume 

 these grains to be of equal size and distributed at 

 random through space without assuming them (as in 

 the kinetic theory of gases) to be in motion among 

 themselves. On the other hand, a medium in which 

 the motion of the different grains among themselves 

 partakes of the nature of diffusion does not lend 



1 "The Sub-Mechanics of the Universe." By Osborne Reynolds, 

 M.A., F.R.S., LL.D., M.Inst.C.E. Pp. xvii + 256. (Cambridge Uni- 

 versity Press : Published for the Royal Society of London, 1903.) Price 

 10s. i>d. net. 



NO. 1773, VOL. 68] 



