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Nature Notes: 
THE SELBORNE SOCIETrS MAGAZINE.. 
No. 214. OCTOBER, 1907. Vol. XVIII. 
SUN SPOTS AND THE WEATHER. 
HE recent period of great solar activity, whicli has been 
interesting the astronomical world during the past 
1 gives rise to a certain amount of speculation as 
' to whether the long continued cycle of unpropitious 
wekther is caused by, or has any relation to, the abnormal quan- 
tity of sun spots that made their appearance in the latter part 
of 1962 and the summer of 1903. As a general rule, it may be 
asserted that the interval ensuing between one period of 
maximum sojar activity and another, is approximately one of 
two years’ duration ! 
Tlie period prior to that which has now passed was in 1892, 
a year which did not suffer from any grem amount of inclemency 
in the weather. Yet it is difficult to lay down any hard and 
fast rule of maxima and minima sun-spot activity. We have 
(i) on record, that Flamstead, after having made observation 
of the great sun spot of 1684, declared that not for eight years 
had he witnessed a similar phenomenon. Sir R. Ball, again, 
states that in 1705 it was asserted that the sun’s surface had 
hardly been marred by more than two groups of spots during a 
period extending over so long a time as sixty years. It is 
difficult to suppose that during those sixty years there had 
been an unprecedented and prolonged lack of rainfall owing to 
the paucity of sun spots. 
This long period of solar inactivity came to an end in the 
following year, when no fewer than eight distinct groups of 
sun spots were visible at one and the same time. 
Observations made on February 28, revealed one very large 
spot, approaching the limb of the sun. This spot was triangular 
in form, and was surrounded by bright rays of diversified form, 
known as faculae. This fleecy looking matter, which so often 
is observed in connection with large spots, is diversified clouds, 
which are wafted about in the sun’s atmosphere. The spot 
itself is a cavity in the photosphere of the sun, caused by the 
