462 The Anomalous Season . [July? 
currents in the upper regions of the air, so that the only 
result is a torrent of rain followed by a fresh rush of the 
north-east wind. Even the storms which cross over from 
America fail to give any relief ; they are deflected southwards 
by some unknown cause, and strike the coasts of France, 
Spain, and Morocco. 
But these considerations, after all, take us but a very 
little way ; we ask why should the equatorial current pre- 
vail in one season and the polar in another ? Why is either, 
when supreme, apt to retain its sovereignty so long ? Why 
is the change from a cold to a warm epoch, or inversely, 
generally effected about the autumnal equinox ? Although 
the cold and the warm seasons by no means exactly and 
invariably succeed each other at intervals of from ten to 
eleven years, — or otherwise we should now be enjoying a 
recurrence of 1868, — we feel by no means free to maintain 
that the alternation in question is not connected with the 
periodicity of the solar spots. The exceptions may very 
possibly be residual phenomena due to the intervention of 
some as yet unsuspected cause, which may either displace 
the epochs of greatest heat and cold or may obliterate one 
of them altogether. 
A practical consideration is how the approach of an 
abnormal season may be foreseen. If northerly winds 
begin in October, and continue with little intermission till 
the end of the year, there is already room for grave appre- 
hension. But if, after an early commencement of winter, 
there is no decided change before the end of February, a 
cold late spring and a chilly summer become almost a 
matter of certainty. Hence it will be seen that the writer 
is not one of those who expeCt heat and drought as charac- 
teristics of the approaching summer. 
We may at any rate safely say that a severe and pro- 
longed winter is far from announcing a warm summer. 
Nor is it safe to conclude that in a late spring the fruit will 
escape the effects of frosty nights. Such frosts in a late 
season simply occur in June instead of May. 
