Years, Rain. Sums. 
In. In. 
RESO Wea... | ORs 
Max, 41860 ... ... 57°91 187°05 
ROOD ceo se: Zio 
TSOB 50° -s. - 5G'65 
Min. {1867 ... ... 69°93 174'21 
1868 +3: .!. 4460 
[S7E ses sss. ALO 
Max. 41872 ... ... 48°39 154°85 
1873 «i °.:. 65'00 
Grouping the results we obtain :— 
Rain in : Rain in 
Max. Years. H Min. Years. 
184°42 16367 
187'95 186°70 
154'85 174'21 
527°22 524°58; showing an ex- 
cess of 2°64 in. on the maximum side. 
The quinquennial periods, as far as they admit of comparison, 
give also an excess in favour of the maxima years. 
The heavy falls in 1844 and 1855, and the comparatively small 
fall in 1872, are apparently opposed to the theory; but it 
should be borne in mind that rainfall is greatly affected by local 
causes, and that to reveal the effects of a weaker but more 
general cause we must, as far as possible, eliminate chance, by 
comparing the total falls in maxima and minima periods. Tried 
by this preliminary test, the experience of Barbados can scarcely 
be said to be opposed to the theory. 
My main object, however, is to draw attention to some dis- 
cordances between Mr. Rawson’s figures and those given by 
Mr. Symons in Nature (vol. vii. p. 143) ; for until this dis- 
agreement be explained, there will be considerable uncertainty 
respecting the rainfall of Barbados. The following table will 
show where the two statements are at variance :— 
Years. Rain. Rain. 
(Mr. Symons.) (Mr. Rawson.) 
Dee mmcer Mince! 55 45°31 
Min. Toth? coh he} 745 163°7 74°45 % 163°79 
1845 we we 439 43 91 
1847 42°5 48°10 
Max. } 184d bon 6258 158°3 63°77 ¢ 164°64 
RSAC Mieas=.10y bes a heed 52°77 
EGS maim cos ccs SES P20 
Min. Hoe” FRSmeeee 464 | 1707 48°49 186°70 
RSSvimitis-- .. SO 60°90 
RESON eek sree 5 Sil 56°22 
Max. | 1860 i BS 60°41 186°6 57°91 187°95 
1861 71'I 73°82 
The greatest differences are in 1847, 1855, and 1857, and 
amount (for these three years alone) to 19°4. in. 
It is worthy of remark that both statements show an excess on 
the side of the maxima years ; Mr. Rawson’s of 2'2 in., and Mr. 
Symons’s of 10°5 in. But how did such great differences arise. 
A remark made by Mr. Rawson may explain the matter. He 
says ‘f the average of the island for twenty-five years, from 1847 
to 1871, is 57°74 inches, based upon the mean of three stations 
ia 1843, and increasing to 141 in 1871.” Now it would be use- 
fal to know how the mean yearly rainfalls were determined. Is 
the fall given for 1844 (74°45 inches) a mean of the falls at three 
stations, and the fall for 1872 (48°39 inches) a mean of the falls 
at 141 stations? If so, and if the other yearly means were simi- 
larly obtained, Mr. Symons may not have taken the same 
number of stations as Mr. Rawson. Yearly means thus deter- 
mined would not of course be comparable, for even in a small 
island the rainfall varies greatly according to locality. The rain- 
fall in maxima and minima sunspot years cannot be fairly com- 
pared except by taking the same number of gauges and the 
same stations ; and it is desirable that the falls in the intervening 
years should be given. 
‘© Assuming that sunspots affect all parts of the globe egua//y, 
and that periodicity prevails in all a/ike,” Mr. Rawson, with the 
above experience of Barbados before him, is “led to the con- 
clusion that it was ‘chance alone’ that led to the coincidences 
noticed by Mr. Symons.” Now the theory makes neither of 
these assumptions. It assumes that there is a sunspot periodicity ; 
that this periodicity implies a secular variation of solar heat and 
NATURE 
radiation ; that, therefore, there is a corresponding periodicity of — 
temperature, wind, and rain on our earth; but that, from 
various counteracting causes, the observations at some stations 
will not show a periodicity, while those at a large ma- 
jority of stations, and a mean of all the observations, will © 
doso. Inshort, with respect to rain, the theory assumes that — 
the annual fall over the globe is subject to a variation, cor- 
responding with the sunspot variation, but that from disturbing 
influences, local exceptions must be expected, Granting, there- 
fore, that the rainfall of Barbados is opposed to the theory, I do 
not think it follows that the favourable experience of the British 
Isles must be owing to chance alone ; for that experience is what 
theory leads us to expect, and it is much more extensive both as 
to time and space than the experience of Barbados. If England — 
and Barbados were the whole globe, the theory would be well- 
nigh proved, as far as observation goes; for, according to Mr, — 
Symons’s Table 1, there was not, from 1815 to 1864, a single 
exception to the rule that more rain falls in the maxima years 5; 
and if we take the aggregate falls for England and Bar- 
bados from 1843 to 1873, it will be found that there was a large 
excess on the maximum side. : 
I have now examined 93 rainfall tables from various parts of 
the globe. They are all I have as yet been able to procure, and 
they have been published zz extenso, so that the evidence they 
afford may be scrutinised. That evidence is such that if no rain 
at all had fallen at Barbados in the nine principal maxima years 
since 1843, and the rainfall in the nine minima years were to be 
put in the other scale of the balance, there would still be a large 
surplus in favour of the theory. Up to the present time the 
more numerous the observations, the stronger the evidence. Still 
I shall be prepared to abandon the theory whenever a prepon- 
derance of undoubted facts may be brought against it. ButI ~ 
see no prospect of this, for the rainfalls of England, Scotland, 
the Continent of Europe, India, Africa, America, and Aus- 
tralia, as far as they have yet been examined, sustain the 
theory. C. MELDRUM 
Mauritius, Sept. 15 
Dr. Sanderson’s Experiments and Archebiosis 
Dr. SANDERSON has strangely misunderstood the wording of 
my letter which appeared in NATURE on the gth inst. Any one 
may see that I did not challenge him to ‘‘ deal” with my main 
proposition ‘‘ that Bacteria are capable of arising in fluids inde- 
pendently of living reproductive or germinal particles.” That 
position was merely alluded to by me in order to show the 
relevancy of the question which I asked Dr. Sanderson : and the 
question itself was—‘‘ Whether he still believes that Bacteria are 
killed by a temperature of 100° C. in fluids; and if not upon 
what grounds he has changed his opinion ?” 
Whilst tacitly declining to answer this question, Dr. San 
derson now says, ‘‘I hope that Dr. Bastian will allow me 
to decline to enter on the general question.” But it is pre- 
cisely because Dr. Sanderson has distinctly expressed himself — 
upon the general question both at the late meeting of the British 
Association and in your columns (NATURE, vol. viii. p. 181), 
that I feel he may, both from a moral and from a scientific point 
of view, be called upon to reply to the question above quoted. 
The need that Dr. Sanderson should express the grounds 
of his opinion concerning the death point of Bacteria in heated 
fluids is further shown by Mr. Ray Lankester’s communication 
in last week’s NATURR, in which he says, ‘‘ Dr, Sanderson does not — 
believe that there is a definite relation between the precise tem- 
perature to which the infusion is exposed and the destruction of — 
Bacterian contamination.” Now if this is really Dr. Sanderson’s 
present opinion, it may not inappropriately be asked whether it 
is an opinion based upon defmite evidence or whether it is a mere 
surmise? I say the question is not inappropriate because, as 
Dr. Sanderson will recollect, I have heard from his own lips, 
since his return from Bradford, that he has made no defi- 
nite observations upon the subject, and that he is quite 
unprepared to question the truth of the experimental evidence 
which I have recently brought forward (Proceed. of Royal 
Society, Nos. 143 and 145) showing that Bacteria are killed 
in fluids which have been raised for five minutes to a tempe- 
rature of 60° C, (140° F.)* 
Dr. Sanderson previously supposed that Bacteria were in- 
capable of appearing and rapidly multiplying in certain fluids — 
* I should have hesitated about referring to what has passed in conversa- 
tions between Dr. Sanderson and myself, if he had not set the example 
both in your columns (NATURE, vol. viii. p, 181) and in a discussion atone 
of the meetings of the Royal Society. Y 
