The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-05-24 00:00:00

THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS.

Upon the above subject, The nntes publishes the follow- I
ing letter :
Sir,—There can be no reasonable doubt that a cycle
of the reasons exists, though its precise period has yet
to be ascertained. A lengthened investigation has,
however, satisfied me that the cycle is about-11 years.
Thus every 11 years drought and heat are experienced,
utrually of three years' duration—that is to say, the
drought recurring in three consecutive summers. Such
a period of drought is now apparently at hand, and
the summer of 1879 may be expected to be very
similar to that of 1868.

Although the calculated period may be assumed to
be 11 years (from the crlnmencement of one drought
'to that of the next) certain disturbiog influences
- operate fromlime to-time, and occasionally -accelerate
,or retard the return Qf these drought* by ono or two
year*. One iitriking fact to be specially observed is
-thate-the• periods of extreme heat and cold are grouped
together. The record* of remarkable droughts and
frosts, which have been handed down to us by • the
chroniclers, show that great droughts have usually
been preaeded by 'severe'shoats and as frequently fol-
lowed by, frosts of kreater or less severity-that is to say,
, in the majority of instances, se far back as we may trace,
all the extremes of temperature are in groups of IMO-
.where about- five Years, followed .by a like period in
which the' heat :and cold are not excessive. In this
series of years, midway between these periods of ex-
cessive heat and cold, when the weather is more or
less free from frosts in winter, and from droughts and
heat in summer, we have, for example, from 1469 to the
present time scarcely any drought recorded in the
fourth, fifth, and sixth years after the computed coin-
mencement of what may be termed the drought
period.
In many instances the severe winter has preceded
the first year's drought by a period of less than six
months, and this is therefore a further proof that the
summer of 1879 will, in all probability, be one of heat
and drought.
In former days a famine was the natural conse-
quence of a time of drought, so that a recori of famine
is almost a sure indication of a drought. Indeed it
will be obvious that a time of scarcity would be re-
garded as a far more important occurrence than a mere
meteorological phenomenon, and thence famines are
frequently recorded in chronicles when droughts are
ignored.
In the absence of any long continued series of exact
meteorological observations, it is obviously difficult to
discover the precise number of days constituting a cycle
of the seasons, and to do this it is likewise requisite to
ascertain what may supply the disturbing element,
whether planetary or otherwise, affecting any particu-
lar period and resulting in altering the duration or
modifying the extremes of temperature.
If we assume that the drought of 1868 came at its
appointed time, then the droughts of 1857, 1791, 1719,
1635, 1626, 1538, 1516, 1406,1285, and 1021 likewise came
at the appointed time; and upon the same hypthesis
we may conclude that the droughts of 1845, 1834, 1779,
1757, 1746, 1724, 1691, 1669, 1614, 1361, 1350,
1251, 1130, 1086, and 987 were accelerated one
year; and that the droughts of 1825, 1704, 1583,
1528, 1473, 1429, 1341, 1242, and 1121 were retarded
by one year. And again the droughts of 1800,
1635, 1503, 1393, 1228, and 1151 were accelerated
two years, while those of 1573, 1375, 176, and 1177
were' retarded a like period. Thus between the years
1230 and 1868 in 54 periods we have 46 droughts re-
corded as commencing within two years of the ap-
pointed time. But if we take the year 1862 (midway
between the assumed years of recurring droughts)
in 43 periods we have as many as 35 instances where
the drought does not occur within from three to five
years of this epoch, and of this number there are 18 in-
stances, when there are no droughts nearer than five
years to this starting point; while if we take 1868 as the
assumed year, we havescarcely an instance of the drought
commencing as much as five years from the appointed
time. The following are instances of great frost occurr-
ng immediately before a great drotight:-1811, 1799,
1779, 1758, 17417, 1691, 1680, 1678, 1669, 1658, 164 i,
1635, 1625, 1614, 1598, 1572, 1537, 1515, 1250, 1241,
1221, 1176, 1151. 1142, 1121, 1096, 1(186, 1035, 1020,
987, 774, and 757-i e., there are 32 frosts in 58 periods
occurring immediately before a drought. There are
27 instances of the drought continuing at least for three
consecutive years, and of this number 16 occur in the
last 27 epochs.

A further proof that the cycle of the seasons is u.
•years is shown if the periods are arranged so that 100
years intervene—(i.e, by taking every ninth period).
We then find that for several years the droughtssepeat
themselves every 100 years, thus :-1800, 1700, 1600;
1815, 1715, 1615; 1826, 1726, 1626; 1836, 1736, 1636;
1857, 1757, 1657; 1777, 1679, 1479; 1791, 1691, 1591,
1492, 1393, 1293, 1103.
These drsughts and frosts extend over a considerable
area, and there is evidence that the maximum intensity
is not necessarily repeated over the same tract of land.

Droughts occur in India at about the same time as
they are experienced here, for we have recorded that
they were felt in India in 1877, 1866, 1860, and 1861,
1637 and 1848, 1824 and 1825, 1812, 1813, and 3814,
1802, 1803, and 1804, 1790 and 1791, 1781., 1782, 1783,
1784; ano 1769 and 1770.
At the present epoch in 1879 we have recorded a
great drought in 1877 and 1878 in Australia and China,
and in 1878 in Cape Colony, Barbary, and Morocco.—
.1 have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,
E. J. LOWE.
Hightleld House Observatory, Nottingham.

The Times hag a leader on Mr. Lowe's letter, from
'whip!' we quote the following extracts :

Ai a time when there is no startling discovery to pre.
Occupy the mind, and when the electric light hiss recoiled for
a more vigorous advance, the public will be the less indis-
posed for an important and promising path of inquiry which
requires the careful stilly of our weather tables for a good
many centuries back. Like a sound philosopher and a
true man of business, Mr. E. J. Lowe is for one thing at
once. He addre •sea himself to the simple question whether
there be or be not a cycle of the seasons. Even te ascer-
tain that much, and to establish either that there
Is a cycle sufficiently definite to be depended on,
or that there is not, would be of. great use to those
who care to look ahead in husbandry or in trade.
The fact of a cycle once placed beyond doubt, and its
general character ascertained, we might then proceed to
the iutereeting and curious questions of causes and conse-
quences. Some of our correspondents have felt so sure that
certain regular vicissitudes of drought and frost have to do
with the spots on the sun and our commercial distresses,
that they have 'hardly been content to try the atmospheric
question on its own grounds. Calling all the witnesses into
court, they have invited sunvpots, drought, and commercial
failures to corroborate one another and prove matters not
always clear on the evidence of any one. Mr. Lowe confines
himself to the weather. There is nothing uuphilosophical
In the ides of a cycle, if it be only supported by observa-
tion. 'time enters very largely: into the constitution of man
and the universe he lives in, for there is nothing that hes
not its bounds of time. There may then fairly be supposed
a general product of these times, with its regular periods and
its exceptions. Such a belief would at least be agreeable to
what is known beyond doubt. If we have months and years,
and physical vicissitudes in man as well as nature arising out
of them, why may there not be terms of years or cycles?
Hr. Lowe sees good reason for assuming eleven years lobe
the cycle of the seasons It happens to be the third of a
generation, as a generation is the third of a century;
and if Mr L ,we is right, we shall find ourselves very
pleasantly on the way to a calendar of " appointed " seasons
and times. . . . If there be a cycle of seasons lasting eleven
years, then it will be the fairest term of a lease. The tenant will
be sure of six ordinary years, and of three years liable to
drought, one of them certainly a very bad year. He will know
when he is approaching the five years of uncertainty. If one
passes over without anything remarkable, he will know that
worse may be coming. It the next year, too, proves an agree-
able disappointment, he must gird his loins and set his home in
order, for the drought will come at last with interest. It
will not be a disaster, for, like night or the flow of the tide,
it will be periodical. With the proviso that droughts may
be accelerated or retarded by quickeaing or obstructing in-
fluencee that we know or are ignorant of, Mr. Lowe conceives
that he has made out his cycle of eleven years. We could
wish that he had found it possible to agree with the bolder
Inquirers who have established, quite as much to their
own satisfaction, cycles of 10466, 1045, and 11 11 years;
but it is to be considered that the periodical recurrence
Is not that of one drought, or one bail year, but of five
years specially liable to contain within them throe consecu-
tive years of drought more or less. We are promised the
periodical return of six years in which we need not trouble
ourselves much about the weather. If not good they will
not be ruinous. But then there will be five consecutive
sears in which we may expect the worst, and still more if
year after year passes without the worst coming. It will
come at last, but in the live years which henceforth it will
be proper to mark " dangerous" in the almanack.

Mr. Lowe has sufficient confidence in the virtual uni-
formity of his cycle to warn us of a drought, and conse-
quently bad harvest and subsequent distress, this present
year. He does not stake everything on this prediction, for
he admits irregularities, but he plainly says we are very
likely to have a drought this year. It would not very
materially affect the hay crop, but it would the pasturage
alter the hay crop has been got in, and it would
seriously injure the wheat and other grain crops.
especially on the light soils. Farmers are now in a
bad way, and they would be in a far worse way by
next September should Mr. Lowe's forecast prove
unhappily true. Going back eleven years, he comes to the
terrible drought of 1868, which was computed to be a loss of
fifty millions to this country. Going eleven years further,
he lands us in the drought of 1857. The next undecimal
epochs are 1846 and 1835, but the droughts actually occurred
in 1845 and 1834, accelerated by some unknown cause, a.
winds and currents may bring a ship to port some
time before due. On the other hand, the drought of
I 1825 came a year overdue, retarded by some unknown
cause. Mr. 'Lowe goes back more than a thousand
years, and Ends, not always droughts by name, but
their terrible consequences in famine, recurring with a
sufficient approximation to the Cl cle to encourage him to
claim them as proofs of his theory. By taking several great
droughts and passing on to the ninth next recurring, he
finds drought repeating itself at the regul ir interval of a
century. Thus 1800. 1100, 1600, he says, were years of
drought ; so also 1815, 1715, and 1615; 1826, 1726, 1626'
1836, 1736, 106, which would make the disturbing causes
themselves recur with a regularity admitting of calculation.
The drou-rht, he observes, may be regular as regardsits general
incidence, but may hit our part of the world a year earlier and
'another later. Indeed, that now due has already done its
work in India, Australia, China; and still earlier in Cape
Colony, Barbary; and Morocco. As in a well known grammar
the exceptions are more prominent than the rule, and while
they are duly accounted for the rule almost disappears. Mr.
Lowe deserves our admiration for his courage. lie has thrown
down his challenge. A drought is due, he says ' • such a
drought, indeed the same drought, as that of which we have
heard such feArful accounts in the East and in Australia,
where it has cost the deaths of ten million sheep and
the great deterioration of the remaining thirty millions.
Let our agriculturists look to it, and provide against
the want of a rainy day. What they are to do is not
easy to say. They have gone on wasting the water which
heaven has been lavishing on them to the last moment, and
when the windows of heaven are closed against them they
will only look up in vain. If Mr. Lowe's prophecy now prove
correct, it may lead to the storage of water on a scale worthy
of the immense capital staked in agriculture, and the still
larger interest of the British people in its prosperity. •
•