78 H. I. JENSEN. 



snowed up from May till November. During the present 

 year a great snowfall may be expected in our Australian 

 Alps, just as during the past winter in Europe, the Swiss 

 Alps received an unusually large snowfall. 



It would be interesting, indeed, to know how the great 

 Antarctic icesheet behaves from year- to year. From a 

 meteorological point of view the establishment of a settle- 

 ment in Victoria Land, and the further scientific explora- 

 tion of this region would be a great boon. 



V. Earth-magnetism, Sunspots and Solar Corona. — The 

 connection existing between sunspot maxima and earth- 

 magnetism and aurora has already been demonstrated in 

 my previous paper. Since that time several violent sun- 

 spot disturbances have been observed and at least one 

 outburst, that on and about October 31st, 1903, was 

 accompanied by terrestrial magnetic storms. 1 On that 

 day telegraphic communication was interrupted in part of 

 Europe for eight hours on account of a violent magnetic 

 storm. At the same time a fine display of Aurora Australis 

 was seen as far north as Sydney, N.S.W. Mr. A. Fowler 

 in a letter to " Nature," Nov. 5th, 1903, writes that the 

 C Hydrogen line in the neighbourhood of the great sunspot 

 group near the central meridian was reversed on October 

 31st, between 9 and 10 a.m. This fact beautifully instances 

 the close simultaneity between terrestrial and solar atmos- 

 pheric phenomena. 



In the Index to Literature (Section VI., Part II. of this 

 paper) references are given to interesting papers on the 

 connection between prominences, corona, earth-magnetism 

 and auroras, and also to Professor Dewar's address to the 

 British Association, in which he discussed the existence of 

 the rarer gases helium, neon, crypton, xenon, and argon in 



1 See also Dr. W. J. S. Lockyer in " Nature," No. 1775, Vol. lxix., 

 Nov. 5th, 1903. 



