248 Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society. 



3. There are obscure indications of a tendency to rain at the sun- 

 spot minimum, and possibly the irregular rain of 1902 may be 

 accounted for as a sunspot minimum rain. It so happens that the 

 normal sunspot minimum periods (11 — 22—33 — 44 — 55-5—67 — 78 

 — 89 — 100 in each century) have since the year 1841 so frequently 

 coincided with other cycles that the exact influence of the sunspot 

 minimum is difficult to trace. In the long chain of the Eoyal 

 Observatory rainfall figures the sunspot minimum has had no prac- 

 tical influence till we get to the doubtful case of the 1902 rains. At 

 other stations sunspot minimum rains are more clearly traceable. 

 Note the rains of 1866 at Durban, of 1900 at Bulawayo, Salisbury, 

 and Johannesburg. Further observations are necessary before it 

 can be stated what is the exact influence of the sunspot minimum 

 on South African weather. 



4. Up to the present the direct influence of Bruckner's 35-year 

 cycle is inappreciable in South African weather. 



FORECAST FOR THE ENSUING YEAR. 



As on previous occasions, this forecast is based (1) on the cyclical 

 indications, and (2) on such information as is obtainable of the weather 

 prevailing in neighbouring areas. In the light of what has been 

 said above the present cyclical position will, I hope, be clearly under- 

 stood. 1905 is a double-cycle year; that is to say, the solar cycle and 

 Meldrum's cycle coincide. In my forecasts, published in 1888, the 

 following appears against the year 1905 : " Most probably general 

 good rains. There is no precedent in meteorological records for 

 these two cycles coinciding." For 1906 appears the entry : " Prob- 

 ably good rains with drought at a few stations." The rains so far 

 in 1905 have been heavy at intervals and marked by violent storms 

 — witness the storm at Durban and those in the Cape Peninsula at 

 about the time when a large portion of the town of Malmesbury was 

 destroyed by a storm ; but the total of the 1905 rains has been 

 moderate in the Cape Peninsula and also in the north. In the Cape 

 Peninsula we may regard the 1905 rains as practically finished, and 

 assume a total of 29*5 inches. This is less than 4 inches above the 

 average. From the north, where the summer rains have already 

 decidedly set in, I have the following data : — 



From Zomba it is reported that good rains have set in for the last 

 two months, and with the exception of strong, fitful easterly winds, 

 the season is normal. 



