I am sorry Professor Gurney is not present to-night, as 

 I think the evidence which I have now to bring forward 

 in regard to the recurrence of those B.C. droughts, would 

 cause him to considerably modify his opinion, and, at least, 

 to confess that there was some force in Hamlet's reply to 

 Horatio— 



"And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. There are mor e 

 things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our 

 philosophy." 



Mr. Russell's last paper on this subject was read before 

 this Society on 4th September, 1901, wherein he endeav- 

 oured to show the moon's influence upon the weather by 



longest records was shown by vertical lines to a scale, 

 together with a curve showing the greatest southern 

 declination of the moon for each year, his contention being 

 that the changes in the rainfall, as shown in the diagram, 

 were undoubtedly coincident with the positions of the 

 moon. He said— 



" I do not mean to say thai I have demonstrated that the moon 

 is an active point in the weather, but I think the rain is shown so 

 clearly to come at times of abundance when the moon is in certain 

 degrees of her motion south, and when the moon begins to go 

 north then drought conditions prevail for seven or even eight years, 

 a phenomenon repeated for three periods of nineteen years each, 



I have quoted so fully from Mr. Russell's papers on this 

 subject, in order to refresh your memories concerning the 

 arguments he, from time to time, brought forward in sup- 

 port of his theory, to which he tenaciously clung from the 

 time he first propounded it in 1870 until his death in 1905. 



