InRainfall.Condition of Sun.
185542·665inchesSun-spot minimum.
185646·230„
185743·445„
185835·506„
185956·875„
186045·166„Sun-spot maximum.
186168·733„
186228·397„
186333·420„
186424·147„
186544·730„
186620·571„Sun-spot minimum.
186735·970„
186864·180„

I think no one, looking at these numbers as they stand, can recognize any evidence of a cyclic tendency. If we represent the rainfall by ordinates we get the accompanying figure, which shows the rainfall for eighteen years, and again I think it may be said that a very lively imagination is required to recognize anything resembling that wave-like undulation which the fundamental law of statistics requires where a cycle is to be made out from a single oscillation. Certainly the agreement between the broken curve of rainfall and the sun-spot curve indicated by the waved dotted line is not glaringly obvious. But when we strike an average for the rainfall, in the way adopted by Mr. Jeula for shipwrecks, how pleasantly is the theory of sun-spot influence illustrated by the Port Louis rainfall! Here is the result, as quoted by the high-priest of the new order of diviners, from the papers by Mr. Meldrum:—

Three minimum years—total rainfall133·340
Three maximum years—total rainfall170·774
Three minimum years—total rainfall120·721

Nothing could be more satisfactory, but nothing, I venture to assert, more thoroughly inconsistent with the true method of statistical research.

May it not be that, underlying the broad results presented by Mr. Jeula, there are similar irregularities?

When we consider that the loss of ships depends, not only on a cause so irregularly variable (to all seeming) as wind-storms, but also on other matters liable to constant change, as the variations in the state of trade, the occurrence of wars and rumours of wars, special events, such as international exhibitions, and so forth, we perceive that an even wider range of survey is required to remove the effects of accidental peculiarities in their case, than in the case of rainfall, cyclones, or the like. I cannot but think, for instance, that the total number of ships lost in divers ways during the American war, and especially in its earlier years (corresponding with two of the three maximum years of sun-spots) may have been greater, not merely absolutely but relatively, than in other years. I think it conceivable, again, that during the depression following the great commercial panic of 1866 (occurring at a time of minimum solar maculation, as already noticed) the loss of ships may have been to some degree reduced, relatively as well as absolutely. We know that when trade is unusually active many ships have sailed, and perhaps may still be allowed to sail (despite Mr. Plimsoll’s endeavours), which should have been broken up; whereas in times of trade depression the ships actually afloat are likely to be, on the average, of a better class. So also, when, for some special reason, passenger traffic at sea is abnormally increased. I merely mention these as illustrative cases of causes not (probably) dependent on sun-spots, which may (not improbably) have affected the results examined by Mr. Jeula. I think it possible that those results, if presented for each year, would have indicated the operation of such causes, naturally masked when sets of four years, four years, and three years are taken instead of single years.

I imagine that considerations such as these will have to be taken into account and disposed of before it will be unhesitatingly admitted that sun-spots have any great effect in increasing the number of shipwrecks.

The advocates of the doctrine of sun-spot influence—or, perhaps it would be more correct to say, the advocates of the endowment of sun-spot research—think differently on these and other points. Each one of the somewhat doubtful relations discussed above is constantly referred to by them as a demonstrated fact, and a demonstrative proof of the theory they advocate. For instance, Mr. Lockyer, in referring to Meldrum’s statistical researches into the frequency of cyclones, does not hesitate to assert that according to these researches “the whole question of cyclones is merely a question of solar activity, and that if we wrote down in one column the number of cyclones in any given year, and in another column the number of sun-spots in any given year, there will be a strict relation between them—many sun-spots, many hurricanes; few sun-spots, few hurricanes.” ... And again, “Mr. Meldrum has since found” (not merely “has since found reason to believe,” but definitely, “has since found”) “that what is true of the storms which devastate the Indian Ocean is true of the storms which devastate the West Indies; and on referring to the storms of the Indian Ocean, Mr. Meldrum points out that at those years where we have been quietly mapping the sun-spot maxima, the harbours were filled with wrecks, and vessels coming in disabled from every part of the Indian Ocean.” Again, Mr. Balfour Stewart accepts Mr. Jeula’s statistics confidently as demonstrating that there are most shipwrecks during periods of maximum solar activity. Nor are the advocates of the new method of prediction at all doubtful as to the value of these relations in affording the basis of a system of prediction. They do not tell us precisely how we are to profit by the fact, if fact it is, that cyclones and shipwrecks mark the time of maximum solar maculation, and droughts and famine the time of minimum. “If we can manage to get at these things,” says Mr. Lockyer, “the power of prediction, that power which would be the most useful one in meteorology, if we could only get at it, would be within our grasp.” And Mr. Balfour Stewart, in a letter to the Times, says, “If we are on the track of a discovery which will in time enable us to foretell the cycle of droughts, public opinion should demand that the investigation be prosecuted with redoubled vigour and under better conditions. If forewarned be forearmed, then such research will ultimately conduce to the saving of life both at times of maximum and minimum sun-spot frequency.”

If these hopes are really justified by the facts of the case, it would be well that the matter should be as quickly as possible put to the test. No one would be so heartless, I think, as to reject, through an excess of scientific caution, a scheme which might issue in the saving of many lives from famine or from shipwreck. And on the other hand, no one, I think, would believe so ill of his fellow-men as to suppose for one moment that advantage could be taken of the sympathies which have been aroused by the Indian famine, or which may from time to time be excited by the record of great disasters by sea and land, to advocate bottomless schemes merely for purposes of personal advancement. We must now, perforce, believe that those who advocate the erection of new observatories and laboratories for studying the physics of the sun, have the most thorough faith in the scheme which they proffer to save our Indian population from famine and our seamen from shipwreck.