SUNSPOTS AND VOLCANIC AND SEISMIC PHENOMENA. 69 



days is below normal ; further, his curve of variation in 

 number of frosty days agrees with the sunspot curve. 1 



Not satisfied with this evidence alone, Mr. McDowall 

 examines the dates of flowering of various plants and finds 

 that they bloom earlier in sunspot maximum years. 2 [This 

 may be due either to the prevalence of warmer, or of moister 

 winters, or probably of both together. — H.I.J.] 



As already pointed out in my previous paper, many 

 distinguished European meteorologists endorse the same 

 views as Mr. McDowall. 



In Australia we experience in years'of maximum sunspot 

 intensity (at any rate as far as New South Wales and 

 Queensland are concerned) moister and more chilly seasons 

 than usual. In tropical parts the summer becomes long, 

 moist, sultry at times, but usually cooler than normal ; the 

 winter becomes short and somewhat warmer than normal. 

 In temperate parts (like New South Wales from Sydney 

 southward) the summer becomes long, cool and moist ; 

 warm north-west winds and their concomitants the 

 southerly bursters are less frequent, monsoonal conditions 

 and easterly winds being more prevalent ; the winter 

 becomes short, and very wet and chilly, inasmuch as it is 

 the rainy season. The anticyclone belt is very much 

 reduced in width in such periods, and is continually broken 

 by disturbances, in summer chiefly of monsoonal nature, 

 in winter connected with the antarctic V disturbances. 

 The Central Australian cyclone assumes great dimensions 

 in the summer, and the outblowing winds do not descend 

 to the earth's surface within the limits of the continent, 

 hence we do not often experience the north-westerlies, 

 whereas the easterlies blowing towards the depression are 

 fairly persistent. 



1 Nature, No. 1773, Vol. lxviii., October 22nd, 1903. 



2 "Sunspots and Phenology/' Nature, No. 1765, Vol. lxviii. 



