246 Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society. 



rains in the south-west came as a surprise to me. If you run the 

 eye over the whole of the rainfall registered at the Eoyal Observatory 

 back as far as the year 1841, it will be seen at a glance that there is 

 nothing nearly so abnormal as the rains of 1902 and 1903. I pre- 

 dicted rains about then, connected with the sunspot minimum, but I 

 did not think these rains would extend to the south-west. In the 

 event they went right through South Africa, from Cape Town to 

 Salisbury in Ehodesia ; and, like all the other cycle rains, they began 

 in the north first. In the Cape Peninsula and Malmesbury they 

 began in 1902 and lasted till 1904 ; but this duration was local. At 

 Ceres, the inland side of the axis of heavy rainfall in the south-west, 

 they had less than three-fourths the average rainfall in 1903. Going 

 eastward, we see irregular distribution at once in the incidence of 

 this abnormal rain. Grahamstown and King William's Town had 

 practically none of it. At the two neighbouring high-level stations 

 Evelyn Valley had tremendous rains in 1903, while Katberg had 

 none. Again Aliwal got simply a drought mitigation in 1902 ; 

 Aliwal and Queenstown moderate rains in 1901. 



A possible explanation occurs to me with regard to the abnormal 

 1902 rains. They may be due to the delayed and irregular sunspot 

 minimum. The sunspot minimum was due in 1900, and at Salis- 

 bury, the most northern station, heavy rains set in in 1899, and 

 continued until 1901, while at Bulawayo the rains were slightly 

 above the average in 1901 and 1902. Coming further south to 

 Johannesburg, we find well-developed rains in 1901 and 1902 ; and 

 further south to Natal, we find that Durban had heavy rains in 1901, 

 while Maritzburg shared the 1902 rains of the west of Cape Colony. 

 We thus see a chain of irregular rains extending from north south- 

 wards, and it seems possible to regard these as in some way con- 

 nected with the irregular sunspot minimum of those years. 



In 1901 came the extraordinary summer rains in the south-west 

 of Cape Colony ; in January of that year 5 inches of rain were regis- 

 tered at the Eoyal Observatory. And these abnormal rains extended 

 to New Zealand, but not to Australia. 



Nevertheless except for the small south-west area of winter rains, 

 the irregular rains of 1901-1902 were correctly forecasted. Page 109 

 of " Cycles of Drought and Good Seasons," published in 1888, reads, 

 "1889, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903, all years of drought, with an irregular 

 mitigation of one or two years, good or average rainfall, occurring most 

 probably about 1901." 



In the Annual Eeport of the Meteorological Commission for 1902 

 is one of those interesting graphical diagrams which the Secretary to 

 the Meteorological Commission contrives to give us, from time to 



