286 
SUNSPOTS AND BRITISH WEATHER. 
By W. L. DALLAS, of the Meteorological Office. 
HHHE forecasts which appear in our daily papers refer only to 
JL a space of about twelve hours after their time of issue, and 
if they give us a correct idea, which as a rule they do, of the 
weather of the approaching day, they do all that was ever 
claimed for them, and their object is attained. Whatever may he 
the value of such information (and during harvesting operations 
it must be enormous), no one would probably deny that it is of 
much more importance to be able to give warning of a dry or 
wet season, than merely of a dry or wet day. When the sea- 
sons have their normal amounts of rain, cloud, and sunshine, 
the present system of forecasts may be all that is required, but 
when we are passing through such a spring and summer as was 
experienced last year, it is felt that something more is wanted, 
and the necessity of seasonal forecasts is fully recognized. The 
middle six months of 1879 were certainly unexampled for many 
years past for coldness and continuance of rain, yet we had 
no previous warning that such would be the case, and practical 
meteorologists were quite unable to say whether the showery, 
unsettled weather, when it had once set in, would last for only 
one month, or for two, or till the end of the year. In conse- 
quence, the capital of our agricultural community was as 
thoroughly lost as though it had been thrown into the sea. 
Hundreds of thousands of pounds that might have been profit- 
ably employed in some other way, or at least might have been 
laid by for a more favourable season, were expended in 
labour that was to prove quite abortive, and in seed that was 
destined to be washed away. It is now quite evident that while 
telegraphic reports of the actual state of atmospheric pressure, 
the winds, &c., may and do enable us to form a very correct 
estimate of the probable weather for several hours in advance, 
their indications are unsafe guides for any longer period, so 
that it becomes clear, that in order to succeed in forecasts 
