CONCLUSION 589 



Conclusion 



Further details of the relation of the cyclonic hypothesis to the climate 

 of the geological past must be left for future investigation. In the 

 ancient Permian times, according to the conditions of the hypothesis, 

 our earth must have presented a curiously banded appearancte, like Jupi- 

 ter, with its cloudy bands and spots. On either side of the equator two 

 bands of almost constant storm and cloud presumably encircled the entire 

 globe, and perhaps almost merged with one another. Beyond them, in 

 the middle latitudes of either hemisphere, a belt of aridity and of great 

 deserts prevailed. There the air was always clear, and an observer on 

 another planet would have been able to see large pinkish areas in the 

 centers of widely extended transverse continents. Then in the far north 

 and south there were probably two other belts where cloudiness prevailed, 

 but where the clouds were not particularly dense. From age to age the 

 banding has presumably changed, and it may be that in the various 

 planets we can find some of the stages through which the earth has 



The picture of the Pleistocene and Permian glacial periods which has 

 here been drawn is avowedly only a rough sketch, a first attempt at a 

 task which will require the cooperation of scores of investigators. It 

 must be regarded merely as an approximate statement of what would 

 have happened in those times if events had occurred in accordance with 

 the cyclonic form of the solar hypothesis of climatic changes. The most 

 significant feature of the whole matter is, in a sense, its unexpectedness. 

 A series of studies was carried on for the purpose of determining the 

 cause of the changes of climate now in progress without special refer- 

 ence to the geological past. These studies led to the conclusion that the 

 key to the solution of many climatic problems lies in Kullmer's law of 

 the apparent relationship between the type of solar phenomena known 

 as sun-spots and the type of terrestrial phenomena known as cyclonic 

 storms. Taking the conclusions thus reached, we have simply magnified 

 them. When slightly magnified, they seem to produce the results which" 

 have apparently occurred during the climatic changes of historical times. 

 When more magnified, they seem to give the phenomena observed during 

 the Pleistocene glacial epoch. When magnified very greatly, they seem- 

 ingly lead to the highly specialized conditions of the great Permian 

 epoch of glaciation. We have no direct evidence that any such change 

 in either sun-spots or storms has taken place. We can merely say that if 

 our conclusions as to the climate of the present are correct, and if the 



XLTI — Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., Vol. 25, 1913 



