SUN-SPOT, STORM, AND FAMINE. 51 



the track of a discovery which will in time enable us to fore- 

 tell the cycle of droughts, public opinion should demand 

 that the investigation be prosecuted with redoubled vigour 

 and under better conditions. If forewarned be forearmed, 

 then such research will ultimately conduce to the saving of 

 life both at times of maximum and minimum sun-spot 

 frequency." 



If these hopes are really justified by the facts of the 

 case, it would be well that the matter should be as quickly 

 as possible put to the test. No one would be so heartless, 

 I think, as to reject, through an excess of scientific caution, 

 a scheme which might issue in the saving of many lives from 

 famine or from shipwreck. And on the other hand, no one, 

 I think, would believe so ill of his fellow-men as to suppose 

 for one moment that advantage could be taken of the sym- 

 pathies which have been aroused by the Indian famine, or 

 which may from time to time be excited by the record of 

 great disasters by sea and land, to advocate bottomless 

 schemes merely for purposes of personal advancement We 

 must now, perforce, believe that those who advocate the 

 erection of new observatories and laboratories for studying 

 the physics of the sun, have the most thorough faith in the 

 scheme which they proffer to save our Indian population 

 from famine and our seamen from shipwreck. 



But they, on the other hand, should now also believe that 

 those who have described the scheme as entirely hopeless, do 

 really so regard it If we exonerate them from the charge of 

 responding to an appeal for food by offering spectroscopes, 

 they in turn should exonerate us from the charge of denying 

 spectroscopes to the starving millions of India though 

 knowing well that the spectroscopic track leads straight to 

 safety. 



I must acknowledge I cannot for my own part see even 

 that small modicum of hope in the course suggested which 

 would suffice to justify its being followed. In my opinion, 

 one ounce of rice would be worth more (simply because it 

 would be worth something) than ten thousand tons of spec- 



