The Savannah morning news., 1900-07-09
\ "sUN-sPOT" YEAR.
Il Usually Notable in the Earth for
Manifestations of Great Electrical

= -
From the Boston Advertiser.
1t is 10 be believed. from evidences now
to be seen in the sun, that a period OF
great activity is in progress there. and
| that the effects of this immeasurable force
viii be seen during the next five years
in whet IS known as sun spots" These
sun spots are supposed TO be great solar
volcanoes, or other disturbances of the
SUMS surface In some visible way. The
spots can be seen easily by observers
during the years up TO 1905, when the max
imum viii have been reached. These sup
posed cavities sometimes 90 10 a width
Of about 10000 miles. and then break up
into two separate spots or cavities some
times separating al the rate of perhaps
100 miles an hour.
The energy sent out by the same force
that causes these sun spots must be enor-
nous There are some reasons for be-
| lievng that before the spots themselves
make their appearance to the sight, the
energy is at work and is radated from
the sun to the planets OF this system. At
all events the sun-epot periods are usual
ly notable on the earth for peculiar man
ifestatons of electrical energy. The cleo
trio storms that have been seen in New
England lately are due, in some degree,
to the solar energy and the electricity sent
to the earth a result. Such at least.
is a widely received scientific theory.
1t may be that the sun spots, or the en-
ergy of which they are merely the result,
work in some fashion that cannot be so
easily traced. During the past three years,
when the suns energies have been 81
work, strange things have happened in
the world Is it merely a coincidence?
Il so it is at least worth notice that coin
| cidences OF this kind are not rere, if one
lakes the trouble 10 look up the story Of
the civilized world in the few years pre-
cedlng each period OF outbreak of sun
spots, say, in the past fifty years.
To trace back the periods. reckoning
eleven years as the cycle. the beginnings
OF sun spot outbreaks would be reckoned
IN 1889, 1887 1867, and 1856. in such a count.
| These dates are not exact because the
period of duration is not exactly measur-
ed in units of years. Still il is surely
worth some notice that before the period
OF 1855 there came the desperate outbreak
| Of the war in the Crimea that before the
| period of 1867 the United States was raw
| aged by civil war to an extent hardly
ever recorded in the history of any other
country. and that the great tragedy of
14incolns death had been recorded; that
| preceding the sun-spot period of 1878 there
came the narrowing experiences of
| France. eliminating in the communist
riots, and the Russian Turkish war; that
before 1889 came the Roumelan revolu-
| ton, the Nihilist outbreak in Russia. and
the war with the Afghans; and that be
| fore 1900 came the war with Spain, the
Jameson raid, and the consequent war be
tween the Beers and the British
It is also interesting 10 note how fnan-
clel movements of Importance have ac-
companied the manifestation of sun spots
| in the past half century. Each period
has been accompanied by great business
| booms, and the climax and disappearance
| of the sun spots in close proximity TO a
! financial panic, except in 1851 when the
| immense preparations for war in the Uni
| ted States rather caused better business
| Since that date. however, the years 1879
| 1884, and 1895 were years of widespread
! financial and industrial depression. This
! coincidence is also striking enough to
| be noted. OF course such condolences DO
not prove that the energy or the reaction
| in the sun causes such results on the
earth;but ii is at least remarkable that the
| suns energy and the human energy on
the earth should have run in cycles so
| closely alike.