82 Sun-spottery . [February, 
of its photosphere, and such changes as we believe to be 
indicated in the appearance and disappearance of the solar 
spots. 
Of late years the rainfall of the British Islands has become 
an object of special study and investigation, with amateurs 
as well as paid officials. Mr. J. J. Symons, of the Meteor- 
ological Society, who has recently published statistics ga- 
thered from numerous quarters, takes occasion to refer to 
the existing caprice of heaping ridicule on the astronomical 
precedent of referring the phenomena of Nature to fixed and 
pre-determinate laws. He calls attention to the circumstance 
that the wettest years in England of late prove to have been 
1836, 1841, 1848, 1852, and i860, and that the first, third, 
and fifth of these years fall into a twelve-year period. He 
further calls attention to the circumstance that the driest 
years in England of late prove to have been 1826, 1834, 
1844, i 854-5, 1858, and 1864, and that the second, third, 
fourth, and seventh of these fall into a ten-year period. 
Now it is at once manifest that the twelve-year period of 
wet years he here indicates coincides with the solar cycles, 
and that the dates only differ by two years on the whole from 
the epochs of most sun-spots assigned by Prof. Wolf. The 
ten-year period of dry years, which alternates with these 
wet years, will then consequently correspond to the minima 
years of solar spots, from which in three of the instances 
they differ but one year. 
' If there is indication that the sun-spots may be traced in 
the amount of English rainfall, the question then arises — 
How does our rainfall affedt the growth and ripening of the 
wheat ? Let us summarise the corn statistics. Mr. J. E. 
Thorold Rogers, some years back, undertook the arduous 
labour of tabulating the price of corn in England from the 
thirteenth down to the commencement of the seventeenth 
century, and has embodied the result of his researches in 
four goodly volumes. Going over the columns of his Tables, 
and counting eleven years for the return of the maxima of 
sun-spots, we observe an unmistakable rise in the price of 
wheat at every year the pencil checks, — from 1259, when the 
liberal-minded Henry III. became the vidtim of his turbu- 
lent barons, to 1582, the year when the calendar was rectified 
by Pope Gregory XIII. As a rule we notice that the dispo- 
sition to rise precedes the years to which we assign an excess 
of solar spots ; and this occurs with a regularity that might 
surprise those who, drawing from the depths of their inward 
conscientiousness, have hitherto failed to perceive the su- 
premacy of our public light in mundane matters. These 
