?8o 



NA TURE 



[August 20, 1896 



unknown cycle running amongst these droughts, or in con- 

 nection with Australian droughts, the dates of which have been 

 unknown until now. These dates are points in history, and the 

 fact that they fall into a cycle of weather, itself supported by 

 all the available drought dates of the last thousand years of 

 history, is in strong confirmation of the accuracy of these B.C. 

 dates. 



These intervals in which our droughts are found repeated are 

 surprising, but I am not unaware of the differences of opinion in 

 regard to chronology, but take the dates as given, and it is 

 remarkable how exactly they fit in. But there is another point 

 of importance hidden in these dates, and probably you have not 

 noticed it. Pharaoh's drought was predicted, and a Jew was 

 made chief man under the king, and he was doubtless versed in 

 much of the wisdom of the priests, and carried that wisdom to the 

 Jewish priests, who did not forget it, as the figures make mani- 

 fest, and if warning of such evils could be depended upon, it is 

 not likely they would forget it. The figures show that Elijah's 

 prediction was a repetition of Pharaoh's drought 42 x 19 years 

 after it ; also Elisha's prediction was nineteen years after 

 Elijah's, and it is noteworthy that the drought in David's time, 

 although it does not appear to have been predicted, was 19 x 36 

 after Pharaoh's, This seems to me to be very strong evidence 

 in favour of the view that the Egyptians knew of the nineteen 

 years' cycle, and that the Jews brought the knowledge away 

 with them. 



Those learned in Assyrian antiquities tell us that the book 

 containing "the Observations of Bel," the oldest astronomical 

 book of that part of the world, was ordered to be kept by the 

 king 3800 years B.C. ; that book shows that they kept a record 

 of astronomical and all other events, that they had discovered 

 the nineteen years' cycle of eclipses, and we are told that it was 

 a doctrine with them, that one event caused another, and all 

 astronomical and meteorological observations were thus bound 

 up together. Under such conditions I do not think it would be 

 possible for them to avoid finding in the droughts a similar period 

 to that in the eclipses, i.e. nineteen years ; but even if they did, 

 it would have been impossible for those who kept the Nilometer 

 in Egypt to avoid finding it in the heights of the Nile floods, 

 which were of such vital importance and so carefully re- 

 corded. 



Since I have been working at this subject there have been a 

 number of red rain storms noted in New South Wales, and the 

 latest, on April 10, suggested to me this line of investigation. 

 Red dust is obviously a proof of drought somewhere, otherwise 

 the dust could not rise ; and since these proofs of drought are 

 entirely apart from the others, and recorded not as droughts but 

 as marvels, which in days gone by created no little alarm, it 

 will be worth while to see how far they support or contradict 

 the nineteen years' cycle. The result of this resolution came as 

 a surprise to me, because it was so unexpected ; I had no idea 

 there were so many records of red rains, or that they went so far 

 back in history. 



There are altogether sixty-nine recorded instances of the fall of 

 red rain ; of these I have recorded six for New South Wales. 

 The first was fourteen years after the foundation of the city of 

 Rome, that is in B.C. 738, and there are nine others B.C., all of 

 which fit into the nineteen years' cycle ; between 538 B.C. to 

 582 A.i). I can find no record of red rain, but from 582 to 1896 

 there are fifty-nine recorded falls of red rain, and all of them fit 

 into the nineteen years' cycle. We have here, then, ten B.C. 

 droughts which go with the eight mentioned before to make 

 eighteen B.C. droughts in support of the cycle, the remainder, 

 fifty-nine, are included in the previous list. 



I have endeavoured to jnit before you some of the reasons 

 which have convinced me that there is a cycle in weather ; but 

 the necessity for brevity in order to keep within the limits 

 of one address, has rendered it necessary to express in a few 

 sentences the results of many separate investigations, and the 

 evidence does not seem so strong when thus condensed as it 

 does when a number of facts one by one are brought to light 

 from diverse sources, all of which individually support the 

 proposition. I can assure you that the evidence was far more 

 convincing when taken in detail ; but want of lime to get these 

 details into one address, make this course impossible. Enough 

 appears to have been said to prove that the cycle does exist, 

 and to show the very great importance of this re-discovery of a 

 law of climate which, there are many reasons to think, was 

 well known to the Jews, the Egyptians, and other ancient 

 peoples ; they at least knew how to forecast droughts success- 



fully, and in Egypt, like sensible people, made provisions for 

 them. 



An examination of the weather of one hundred years of New 

 South Wales has shown that certain features recur every nine- 

 teen years ; we have seen that the droughts of history — the great 

 and conspicuous droughts I mean— all drop into this .same cycle r 

 both those that happened before the birth of Christ, and those 

 that have occurred in our era ; for instance, Elijah's drought 

 happened in B.C. 908, that is, 2736 before our great drought in 

 1828, and the interval is 19 x 144. (Ireat hurricanes, the great 

 frosts of history, all the red rains, and all the droughts that 

 history records, with a very few exceptions, likewise are included 

 in this cycle, and the level of great laVes in Palestine, South 

 America, and New South Wales are suliject to the same 

 mysterious influence that controls our weather. 



As my investigation proceeded, the weight of evidence 

 gradually converged upon the moon as the exciting cause. I 

 have never had any .sympathy with the theory of lunar influence 

 upon weather, a"hd received, rather against my will, the evidence 

 that presented itself ; still the logic of facts left no alternative 

 but to accept the moon as prime motor. There has not beenr 

 time to complete this investigation, and when finished it must 

 form another paper. Meantime I may say that, so far, the 

 comparison of the moon's positions in relation to the sur> 

 and earth and droughts shows that when the eclipses 

 congregate about the equinoxes, that is, in March and 

 September, they do so in the years which give us great 

 droughts. P'lirlher, that when the eclipses accumulate ini 

 February and March, that is, at the vernal equinox and the 

 month before it, and September, the autumnal equinox, and the 

 month before it. August, we have the more intense andl 

 relatively shorter droughts of the second series, with heat, gales. 

 and hurricanes ; on the other hand, when they accumulate abouti 

 March and April, that is, the month of equinox, and the one 

 following, and about September, the month of equinox, and! 

 October following it, we have droughts of the first series that 

 are less severe, but much longer than the droughts of the second 

 series. I have spoken chiefly of droughts ; though, so far as our 

 own history is concerned, it would have served the parix>.se justs 

 as well if I had taken up the periodicity of wet years, but outside 

 Australia it would have been very difficult to get the necessary 

 data, for history has much more to say about the horrors of 

 drought than the abundance of wet seasons. 



NO. 1399, VOL. 54] 



SNAKE VENOM AND ANTI-VENOMOUS 

 SERUM} 



IH.VVE already recorded in a series of memoirs publishedl 

 since 1S92 in the Annalcs dc I'lnstitut Pasteur and in the 

 Coiiiplcs reiidiis dc I'Acadi'mie des Siiciiics, the results of my 

 researches on the venom of snakes, on the immunisation of 

 animals against this venom, and upon the production of an anti- 

 venomous serum. Prof. Eraser has confirmed the facts that I 

 have published, and has successfully repeated almost all my 

 experiments. I bring before you, to-day, a series of new facts, 

 relative to the same question. I may say at the outset, in con- 

 tradiction of the opinion recently expressed by certain physio- 

 logists, that it is fully proved that the venoms of the various 

 species of snakes produce physiological phenomena which have 

 certain features common to all, and that the actions of these 

 venoms only difi'er as regards their local efl'ects. It is now 

 possible to .separate, artificially, the substances which produce 

 the local phenomena from those which produce the bulbar 

 inloxication. This separation may be effected by means of heat. 

 If any sample of venom be thrown into watery solution and 

 heated at 85' C. for a period of fifteen minutes, the albumin con- 

 tained in the solution is coagulated and the phlogogenic sub- 

 stances are destroyed, whilst the toxicity of the .substance is 

 entirely unaftected. MM. Phisalix and Bertrand have already 

 demonstrated this fact in the case of the venom of the viper 

 found in France. After heating at 85° C. and filtration, all 

 venoms, both viperine and colubrine, produce the same effects ; 

 they only differ as to the degree of their toxic activities. 

 Similarly all are destroyed by the hypochkirites of the alkalis 

 and by chloride of gold, the use of which substances I have 

 suggested— particularly the hypochlorite of lime in a .solution of 



1 Abridged from a p.iper re.id before ihc Stttion of Pathology and 

 Bacteriology of the British Medical .^ssiociatioii, by Prof. .\. Calmette, 

 Director of the P.-\sleur Institute, Lille. 



