118 
rainfall observations would agree so closely with those of 
barometric pressure and temperature. 
Instead of comparing the differences between the amounts 
of rainfall it would perhaps be more correct to compare 
their ratios, but the results would be substantially the same. 
Thus dividing the entire series of 11 years into 3 groups, 
the first including the four years 1858-61, one of which was 
a year of maximum frequency of solar spots ; the second the 
four years 1862-65 ; and the third the three years 1866-68, 
one of which was a year of minimum frequency, we have 
the following amounts and their ratios : — 
Sum of Sum of 
Rainfall under Rainfall under 
S.E. & S. winds. S.W, & W. winds. Ratio. 
Inches. Inches. 
4 years 1858-61 40-24 62-13 0-64 
4 years 1862-65 49-10 40-05 1-22 
3 years 1866-68 56-06 26-09 2-14 
Here we have a small ratio in years of maximum solar 
activity, and a large ratio in years of minimum, and a ratio 
of intermediate value for the intervening years. 
It will I think be admitted that the results of this inves- 
tigation support very strongly the hypothesis which led me 
to undertake it. They show also strikingly that the future 
progress of meteorology must depend to a much greater 
extent than has been generally supposed upon the know- 
ledge we may obtain of the nature and extent of the 
changes which are constantly taking place on the surface of 
the sun; and therefore, in the interests of meteorological 
science, it is evidently very desirable that observations of 
solar phenomena should be greatly multiplied by the estab- 
lishment, in various parts of the world, of observatories 
specially devoted to this object, so that a continuous daily 
or even hourly record may be obtained of the state of the 
solar disc and its appendages, and the results discussed in 
connection with those of observations of meteorological 
phenomena. 
