240 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
a large amount of precipitation would occur in the tropics, 
the enormous amount of water which is daily evaporated there 
not being carried quickly away to other regions. Such a 
hypothesis would satisfactorily explain an excess of rain in the 
tropics, and a deficit in the temperate zone in the same year, a 
condition of affairs, which, without some such explanation, would 
be fatal to the Sunspot theory. From the works of some of the 
most eminent of the Sunspot theorists, however, it appeared 
that any such argument was quite unnecessary, the rainfall of 
different stations, collected from independent sources, displaying 
an apparently exact agreement with the number of spots. 
Taking Edinburgh, we find that the figures quoted by Mr. 
Meldrum show a remarkable parallelism between the number of 
spots and the amount of rain. The period under discussion 
extends from 1824 to 1867, and each year’s rainfall has been 
classified according to its position in the series as a year of 
maximum, minimum, or intermediate Sunspots, so that the 
variation from the mean rainfall of all the years of maximum 
Sunspots is shown by the figures in the fifth year of the series, 
and the variation of all the years of Sunspot minima by the 
figures in the first or last lines : — 
Rainfall. 
Variation from the Mean. 
Inches. 
- 2-8 
Sunspots. 
Variation from the Mean. 
- 37*2 
- 
1-8 
- 22-8 
+ 
0*7 
+ 4*4 
+ 
2-4 
+ 33-0 
+ 
3’3 
+ 43-8 
+ 
2*8 
+ 32-9 
+ 
0-5 
+ 14*3 
- 
0-4 
- 2-9 
— 
10 
- 16-6 
— 
2-5 
- 24-7 
— 
1-7 
- 24 0 
From this table it was hoped that the general rainfall of the 
British Isles might be found to vary regularly according to the 
increment and decrement of the Sunspots ; but it is never safe 
to take the rainfall of any one station, and conclude that it pro- 
perly represents a large district, and gives the normal rainfall 
for that part of the Earth’s surface. It happens, however, that 
the Meteorological Office has lately issued a small pamphlet, in 
the form of a supplement to the Weekly Weather Report, in 
which are given the best available averages for fourteen years of 
temperature and rainfall, not for particular stations, but for the 
different meteorological districts into which the British Islands 
have been divided. By accepting these tables, we, in a great 
