The Newtown bee. (Newtown, Conn.) 1877-current, 1879-09-17
WEATHER WAVES.
The Curious Theory of an English
Scientist--How Dry and Wet Summers
Follow Each Other.


Scientist--Hoyv Dry and Wet Summers
Follow Each other.
Mr.. Henry Roe, an English scientist,
sends the following letter to the London
Times:
Isuppose everybody on occasion en-
acts the part of weather prophet, and
sometimes his prediction comes true;
but if / were to pose in that character in
your columns, and proceed to make the
melancholy claim OF having long fore
told the present dismal season, / should
probably get shrug for my conceit, if
not laugh for my folly. Dropping,
then, the prophets mantle, and arming
myself only with the chronicler's pen, |
would like to place on record one or two
results of careful observations / have
made extending over nearly thirty sum-
mers. The first of these results is that
dry and wet periods succeed one another
in alternate waves ofnearly equal length.
Not that this equality of duration is
period is exactly the fac-simile of that of
a corresponding period at an earlier or a
later time, but there is enough of regu-
larity and uniformity about the waves
to make the family likeness clearly dis
cernible to any eye that looks for it.
These periods extend over three whole
years for each, and the following simple
rules will enable any one to work out
the several cycles of years for himself:
l. When the number representing any
given year is even and exactly Invisible
by three, that year is the middle one of
three cold and wet summers.
2. When the number representing the
year is odd and Invisible by three, then
that year is the middle of a triad of dry
and hot summers.
For example, 1860 is even and divisi-
| BILE by three, and the prevailing charac-
teristic of the three years 1859, 1860,
1861 was wet, or wet and cold; and again
1863 is odd and divisible by three, and
| everybody remembers 1862, 1863 and
| 1864 as bright, hot and dry summers.
| Taking now range of twenty-seven
years, over which my own personal OBJ
! servations extend, and applying the rules
| just given, the wet and cold triads were
1886, l959-6I. 1S65-67, 187I-73, and
l877-79, while the dry and hot triads
were 1868, IS62-64, IS68-70, and 1874
| 76; and without claiming that no single
year broke loose from this very simple
order of seasons, l fearlessly maintain
that all the markedly wet or dry sunni
mers of the past twenty-seven years ia
accurately within some wet or dry period
as given above; so that no very wet year
| falls in what should have been a dry per
iod, nor any very dry year in what
| alphabetically was a wet period. This
| hypothesis receives considerable con-
| tirmation from an examination of the
average prices of corn during the years
already referred to. Ordinarily after q
dry summer the next years averages
ought to be high, and after wet summer
| the reverse. Now it is a fact that high
averages prevailed from 1854 to 1856, and
low from 1857 to 1859; they were up again
during 1660-62, down in 1896, up in
1866-68, down in 1922, up in 1874
and down in 1875 II.
How far these cycles may be shown tc
coincide with the greater cycle of eleven
or twelve years, which is observed in the
maxima and minima of spots on the suns
surface, is more than have time now to
inquire; but my good neighbors at Sher
| borne know that for some two or three
years past [ have been pointing out tt
them in public lectures most of the things
| have spoken of in this letter, and | have
been more than borne out by the facts
So much for chronicle. Now for one
word of prediction. The number 1881 is
odd and divisible by three, and if there is
anything in my theory, that year ought
to be the middle one in a triad of hot and
dry summers. / am looking, therefore
with much confidence to a good summe,
in 1880, followed by two similarly gooC
ones in 1881 and 1882, and for the sake OF
| every interest in the country, | earnestly
hope my expectation may not be disap-
| pOiOtp6