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instant response the earth broke out into life. From forest 
and hill the familiar cries of Nature were again heard, the 
crane trumpeting to his mate as he stalks among the waving 
sedges, the cry of curlew and plover wheeling above the 
meres, the clamour of wild fowl settling upon the waters, the 
barking of the fox from the nullahs. The antelopes found out 
their old haunts, and from the villages the hyena and jackal 
skulked away to ravine and cave. Men and women came 
straggling back to their villages; ploughs were dragged 
afield; and, where a week ago was hopelessness and desola- 
tion, the only sounds of living things, the cries of beasts and 
birds over the corpses, there awoke a glad renewal of busy 
peasant life.” 
Something has been said and written on the influence of 
the solar spots on the cyclical changes that involve recur- 
rence of dry seasons, and consequent scarcity or even famine, 
but no very definite conclusions have been reached in regard 
to their value as causal agencies. Mr. Blanford, however, 
says that he considers the evidence in favour of the general 
fact that the solar heat increases and decreases \ pari passu with 
the spots in the photosphere, is at least much stronger than 
any that has been brought forward in favour of the opposite 
view, but the numerical value of the variations has yet to be 
ascertained. 
The relation of the sun spots to rainfall is yet a qucestio 
vexata. 
The following are the Rainfalls of some of the principal 
Stations in India for 1879, compared with the average yearly 
falls : — 
