Decembeb 2, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



781 



ening these east-west currents, because the 

 deflecting field is at right angles to the 

 normal field, and requires north-south cur- 

 rents. It may be generated by the trans- 

 formation of incoming solar radiation in 

 the outer layers of the atmosphere, where 

 the short waves of the spectrum are actu- 

 ally depleted, so that after formation the 

 ions travel along the lines of normal mag- 

 netic force, revealing their presence in the 

 auroi'as, and the slow surging of the merid- 

 ional field of magnetic force. It seems to 

 me doubtful whether this field is due to any 

 corpuscular action bombarded from the 

 sun, and it is more probably due to short 

 wave transformation. The third or per- 

 turbation magnetic field is mixch more ir- 

 regular in its vectors, and it may show 

 evidences of the same forces that produce 

 the meridional and the diurnal fields as 

 well as some other irregular vectors. This 

 field is more probably due to the bombard- 

 ment by the solar corpuscles, being spas- 

 modic and irregular as to period and en- 

 ergy. In view of the configuration and 

 persistent periodic action of the meridional 

 field just described, there was little else to 

 do in 1893, before the discovery of ions, 

 than assume the fact that the sun consti- 

 tutes a huge spherical rotating magnet car- 

 rying an unequal field, due to its internal 

 currents of polarization or fixed internal 

 magnetic masses. My studies on the struc- 

 ture of the sun's coronas during the time 

 of minimum solar activity strongly sug- 

 gested this view, and especiaUj' the appar-. 

 ently fixed positions of certain coronal 

 poles tended to confirm it. The objection 

 that the sun could not be a magnetized 

 body on account of its heat did not seem 

 very important, because the earth is evi- 

 dently hot and at the same time the seat 

 of a permanent magnetic field. The recent 

 discoveries of the Zeeman effect, and its 

 presence in the sun spots, seems to put that 



objection out of court. The only problem 

 now is properly to apportion the electric 

 and magnetic parts in the solar and the 

 terrestrial fields between the variable mag- 

 netic and electromagnetic fields which 

 transport the energy of the sun to the 

 earth. 



Solar Synchronism and Weather Fore- 

 casting. — The revised homogeneous obser- 

 vations of pressure, density of vapor, tem- 

 perature and magnetic field, besides 

 providing normals for climatology and 

 daily forecasting, afford the basis for the 

 study of solar synchronism and long range 

 forecasting. It has been shown already 

 that the entire weather system of the 

 United States systematically varies with 

 the frequency of the solar prominences and 

 sunspots, and with the terrestrial magnetic 

 field. The storm tracks go to lower lati- 

 tudes with the increase of solar action, the 

 movement of the eastward drift is greater, 

 the temperatures of the United States are 

 lower, and the barometric pressures are 

 higher. This is based upon 481 charts of 

 temperature, each containing the variations 

 of temperature from the normal, one for 

 each month, 1873 to 1910; upon a long 

 series of pressure charts, and upon numer- 

 ous other compilations of available data. 

 The reversal of temperatures and the in- 

 crease in the velocity of the eastward drift 

 compensates for the increase of heat 

 energy in the tropics. Similar studies 

 were extended to the entire earth with the 

 result that the sjmchronism is everywhere, 

 but the details are complicated. As mat- 

 ters stand it is entirely proper to under- 

 take annual forecasts of the tj^pe of the 

 coming year, whether cooler or warmer 

 than the normal, provided suitable obser- 

 vations of the outgoing solar energj' can 

 be secured up to date for immediate use. 

 The sun spots are too sluggish a measure 

 of solar energy to be of much value: the 



