40 PLEASANT WAYS IN SCIENCE. 



St Petersburg, he found that a contrary state of things pre- 

 vailed there. 



The Rev. Mr. Main, Director of the Radcliffe Obser- 

 vatory at Oxford, found that westerly winds were slightly 

 more common (as compared with other winds) wnen sun- 

 spots were numerous than when they were few. 



Mr. Meldrum, of Mauritius, has made a series of statis- 

 tical inquiries into the records of cyclones which have 

 traversed the Indian Ocean between the equator and 34 

 degrees south latitude, in each year from 1856 to 1877, 

 noting the total distances traversed by each, the sums of 

 their radii and areas, their duration in days, the sums of 

 their total areas, and their relative areas. His researches, be 

 it marked in passing, are of extreme interest and value, 

 whether the suggested connection between sun-spots and 

 cyclones (in the region specified) be eventually found to be 

 a real one or not. The following are his results, as described 

 in Nature by a writer who manifestly favours very strongly 

 the doctrine that an intimate association exists between 

 solar maculation (or spottiness) and terrestrial meteorological 

 phenomena : 



" The period embraces two complete, or all but complete, 

 sun-spot periods, the former beginning with 1856 and ending 

 in 1867, and the latter extending from 1867 to about the 

 present time [1877]. The broad result is that the number of 

 cyclones, the length and duration of their courses, and the 

 extent of the earth's surface covered by them all, reach the 

 maximum in each sun-spot period during the years of 

 maximum maculation, and fall to the minimum during the 

 years of minimum maculation. The peculiar value of these 

 results lies in the fact that the portion of the earth's surface 

 over which this investigation extends, is, from its geographical 

 position and what may be termed its meteorological homo- 

 geneity, singularly well fitted to bring out prominently any 

 connection that may exist between the condition of the sun's 

 surface and atmospheric phenomena." 



The writer proceeds to describe an instance in which 



