110 H. ©. RUSSELL. 
period, which, as stated in the text, are very strongly in favour of 
the cycle, and I must disagree with Professor Gurney’s argument 
that such knowledge once gained in Egypt would never be lost, 
for the knowledge was not gained by the ¢ommon herd who sur- 
vived the downfall, it was known only to the priests, and would 
in all probability have been lost in the centuries of degradation 
through which Egypt has passed. 
(4) The evidence quoted from Smithsonian Contributions of 
Knowledge. The minima of snow and rain (7.¢., droughts) were 
in 1818-9, 1836-7, 1856 in America. Let us see how they com- 
pare with the diagram ; 1818-9 were in D drought here ; 1836-7 
D drought here began in the latter part of 1836, lasted all 1837 
and 1838 ; 1856, D drought here began in the latter part of 1856 
and continued through 1857-8. The evidence here is far stronger 
in favour of a connection between these North American droughts 
and the Australian nineteen years’ cycle than against it, the more 
so, when we remember that there is good reason to believe from 
the records, and from common observation, that the change to 
drought or to wet weather there is generally a year in advance of 
the date in the Southern Hemisphere. I have not gone into the 
‘question of minimum temperature at all, but of the dates of five 
maxima in America, three agree closely with our droughts which 
began in 1826, 1845, and 1865. It is evident therefore, that had 
Professor Gurney looked a little more closely he would have found 
confirmation not contradiction. 
(5) Now as to what the Professor calls “ Biblical Meteorology” 
“which it is impossible to take seriously,” the point cannot be 
passed over so lightly. I know in common, I suppose, with every 
one who has read anything about chronology, that the dates in 
question are generally taken to be guesses at the probable dates, 
an uncertainty which I indicated at the time; but the facts 
remain, first, that whatever the chronologists did, the intervals 
between those droughts and ours are multiples of nineteen years, 
within the limits of the droughts; and second, that the intervals 
amongst them are either exactly nineteen years or multiples of 
