50 PLEASANT WA YS IN SCTENCE. 



The advocates of the doctrine of sun-spot influence or, 

 perhaps it would be more correct to say, the advocates of 

 the endowment of sun-spot research think differently on 

 these and other points. Each one of the somewhat doubtful 

 relations discussed above is constantly referred to by them 

 as a demonstrated fact, and a demonstrative proof of the 

 theory they advocate. For instance, Mr. Lockyer, in referring 

 to Meldrum's statistical researches into the frequency of 

 cyclones, does not hesitate to assert that according to these 

 researches " the whole question of cyclones is merely a 

 question of solar activity, and that if we wrote down in one 

 column the number of cyclones in any given year, and in 

 another column the number of sun-spots in any given year, 

 there will be a strict relation between them many sun-spots, 

 many hurricanes ; few sun-spots, few hurricanes." . . . And 

 again, "Mr. Meldrum has since found" (not merely "has 

 since found reason to believe," but definitely, "has since 

 found ") "that what is true of the storms which devastate the 

 Indian Ocean is true of the storms which devastate the West 

 Indies ; and on referring to the storms of the Indian Ocean, 

 Mr. Meldrum points out that at those years where we have 

 been quietly mapping the sun-spot maxima, the harbours 

 were filled with wrecks, and vessels coming in disabled 

 from every part of the Indian Ocean." Again, Mr. Balfour 

 Stewart accepts Mr. Jeula's statistics confidently as demon- 

 strating that there are most shipwrecks during periods of 

 maximum solar activity. Nor are the advocates of the new 

 method of prediction at all doubtful as to the value of these 

 relations in affording the basis of a system of prediction. 

 They do not tell us precisely how we are to profit by the 

 fact, if fact it is, that cyclones and shipwrecks mark the time 

 of maximum solar maculation, and droughts and famine the 

 time of minimum. " If we can manage to get at these 

 things," says Mr. Lockyer, " the power of prediction, that 

 power which would be the most useful one in meteorology, if 

 we could only get at it, would be within our grasp." And Mr. 

 Balfour Stewart, in a letter to the Times, says, " If we are OD 



