Perth Amboy evening news., 1904-01-09
SUN sPOTs AND BAD WEATHER.
to the Belief That They Have
Some Relation.

-
A group of European astronomers
who have been comparing records and
statistics to discover if the increase
in the size and number of sun spots
in the last year can be held account
able for the cool and rainy summer ex-
perienced practically the world over
has reached the conclusion that the
two phenomena are connected, and
that the second is. in all probability,
the result of the first, says the New
York Sun.
Connection between the spots and
the weather is admitted. The difficulty
seems to arise owe the point as to
whether numerous sun spots mean bad
weather. This is the cautious opinion
expressed for the group:
Sun spots, which testify to changes
in the solar activity. move in a cycle
of eleven years, which also makes it.
self felt in the variations of the earth's
magnetism. This we know to be
closely connected with changes in our
weather, where also, as well as in the
consequent fate of large classes of
mankind, the eleven-year cycle is WIS.,
ible.
THUS we may safely say that the
sun spots are partly responsible for
our weather, good or bad. But there
is at present neither clear comprehen-
sion of the cause Of that responsibility
nor good warrant for prophesying that
years of numerous sun spots, like the
next two or three, will be years of
bad weather"
IL is now universally admitted, ac-
cording to these astronomers, that
there is some close physical connec-
ton between sur spots and the varia-
ton in terrestrial magnetism. MOI only
does the annual variation agree, but
the sudden appearance of a spot or
the outbreak Of any great disturbance
in the sun sets the magnetic needles
in the observatories jumping and
sometimes starts the magnetic storms
which bother the telegraph wires.
The Indiana professor who thinks he
has discovered that the sun is not
really hot, but probably the inhabited
center of electrical energy in the uni
verse, and it's spots merely glimpses
of the real globe through the veil Of
atmospheric vapor surrounding it, has
really p%ropounded no new theory. Sir
William Herschel thought that the So
called spots were holes In the phos-
phorescent clouds surrounding a cool
and habitable sur and pictured 1t as
peopled with rational beings, who only
occasionally had peeps at the rest of
the universe through these breaks in
the surrounding wall of vapor.
AS to the theory of connection be-
tween sun spots and the weather, Her
schel collected a mass of statistics to
show that there was ian intimate con
n~ection between the number of sun
spots and the price, OF corn, the latter
being low when there were few spots
and high when they were numerous
This theory was abandoned as toe
simple to fit the facts, but Sir Norman
Hunter not long ago undertook a la
borious examination of recorded sta
t~istics, from which, among other
things, they drew this conclusion:
"The 11-years' cycle in terrestrial
| magnetism has a direct and important
influence upon telegraphic enterprise;
the cycle of wind disturbances pro-
duces direct results upon the percent
age of casualties among the shipping
of the world; and the cycle of tropical
rainfall has a portentous coincidence
with the cycle of famine in India"
The sun-spot period is now known tc
last II years, and quite recently Sir
Norman Lockyer established the ex-
istence of the same 11-year period in
the history of famines in India. The
astronomers are therefore driven back
upon the question whether the 11-yeaI
periods in these different phenomena
/ are mere condolences or something
more. And they incline to the BELIEF
that there is much more than coinci
dence in the matter.