44. PLEASANT WA YS IN SCIENCE. 



humorous, but the object of the humour is not manifest 

 The part referred to above is as follows : Poor Jack lies 

 at the bottom of the sea in 1881, and is asked in a spiritual 

 way various questions as to the cause of his thus coming 

 to grief. This he attributed to the rottenness of the ship 

 in which he sailed, to the jobbery of the inspector, to the 

 failure of the system of weather telegraphing, and so forth. 

 But, says the questioner, there was one 



" In fame to none will yield, 

 He led the band who reaped renown 

 On India's famine field. 



" Was he the man to see thee die ? 

 Thou wilt not tax him come ? 

 The dead man groaned ' / met my death 

 Through a sun-spot maximum, ' " 



The first definite enunciation, however, of a relation 

 between sun-spots and shipwrecks appeared in September, 

 1876. Mr. Henry Jeula, in the Times for September 19, 

 stated that Dr. Hunter's researches into the Madras rainfall 

 had led him to throw together the scanty materials available 

 relating to losses posted on Lloyd's loss book, to ascertain 

 if any coincidences existed between the varying number of 

 such losses and Dr. Hunter's results, " For," he proceeds, 

 " since the cycle of rainfall at Madras coincides, I am 

 informed, with the periodicity of the cyclones in the adjoin- 

 ing Bay of Bengal " (a relation which is more than doubtful) 

 " as worked out by the Government Astronomer at Mauri- 

 tius" (whose researches, however, as we have seen, related 

 to a region remote from the Bay of Bengal), " some coinci- 

 dence between maritime casualties, rainfalls, and sun-spots 

 appeared at least possible." In passing, I may note that 

 if any such relation were established, it would be only an 

 extension of the significance of the cycle of cyclones, and 

 could have no independent value. It would certainly follow, 

 if the cycle of cyclones is made out, that shipwrecks being 

 more numerous, merchants would suffer, and we should 



