SUNSPOTS AND VOLCANIC AND SEISMIC PHENOMENA. 75 



there never had been such a spell of fine weather. So I was 

 fortunate."— (See "The Real Siberia," p. 148). By the term spell 

 of fine weather, a tourist naturally means dry weather such as 

 would afford him good roads for walking, riding and cycling. — 

 (H. I. J.) 



Nor does it seem a coincidence that 1864, 1870-72, 1893-4, 

 periods of simspot maximum were wet years over the 

 greater part of the earth's surface. 



The Rothesay rainfall record, extending over about one 

 hundred years, corresponds with the sunspot curve to a 

 considerable extent, very dry times having occurred in 1822, 

 1855, 1887, years of simspot minima and high seismic fre- 

 quency. At all events, if the world's rainfall does not 

 correspond exactly with the eleven year sunspot period, it 

 has been shown and is, I believe, accepted by the majority 

 of modern meteorologists including Herr Hoffrath Julius 

 Han n, the greatest living meteorologist, that climate as a 

 whole, including rainfall, temperature, cyclonic frequency, 

 et cetera, undergo a long period variation of 33 - 37 years, 

 corresponding with the 35 year sunspot period. Thus, 

 climate, earth-magnetism, solar prominences, the auroras, 

 and sunspots are closely related phenomena, all dependent 

 on a common cause within or without the sun. 



It is to further our knowledge of the primary causes of climatic 

 variation, and to discover the secondary or modifying causes that 

 meteorologists of the future must devote their energies, an exceed- 

 ingly difficult task, considering how hard it is to unravel what is 

 cause and what is effect. 



Geographical facts have not been given importance 

 enough in the past in this connection. Mauritius often has 

 heavy rainfalls in years of sunspot minimum with a drought 

 raging at the time in part of India, e.g. in 1876, when the West 

 Indies, South America, Australia, South Africa, Spain, the 

 Barbary States and Russia were suffering from the drought 



