The hope that famines may be abated, or, at least, some of their most grievous consequences forestalled by means of solar observatories, does not appear very clearly made out. Rather it would seem that the proper thing to do is to investigate the meteorological records of different Indian regions, and consider the resulting evidence of cyclic changes without any special reference to sun-spots; for if sun-spots may cause drought in one place, heavy rainfall in another, winds here and calms there, it seems conceivable that the effects of sun-spots may differ at different times, as they manifestly do in different places.
Let us turn, however, from famines to shipwrecks. Perhaps, if we admit that cyclones are more numerous, and blow more fiercely, and range more widely, even though it be over one large oceanic region only, in the sun-spot seasons than at other times, we may be assured, without further research, that shipwrecks will, on the whole, be more numerous near the time of sun-spot maxima than near the time of sun-spot minima.
The idea that this may be so was vaguely shadowed forth in a poem of many stanzas, called “The Meteorology of the Future: a Vision,” which appeared in _Nature_ for July 5, 1877. I do not profess to understand precisely what the object of this poem may have been-—I mean, whether it is intended to support or not the theory that sun-spots influence the weather. Several stanzas are very humorous, but the object of the humour is not manifest. The part referred to above is as follows:—Poor Jack lies at the bottom of the sea in 1881, and is asked in a spiritual way various questions as to the cause of his thus coming to grief. This he attributed to the rottenness of the ship in which he sailed, to the jobbery of the inspector, to the failure of the system of weather telegraphing, and so forth. But, says the questioner, there was one
“In fame to none will yield, He led the band who reaped renown On India’s famine field.
“Was he the man to see thee die? Thou wilt not tax him—come? The dead man groaned—‘_I met my death Through a sun-spot maximum_.’”
The first definite enunciation, however, of a relation between sun-spots and shipwrecks appeared in September, 1876. Mr. Henry Jeula, in the _Times_ for September 19, stated that Dr. Hunter’s researches into the Madras rainfall had led him to throw together the scanty materials available relating to losses posted on Lloyd’s loss book, to ascertain if any coincidences existed between the varying number of such losses and Dr. Hunter’s results. “For,” he proceeds, “since the cycle of rainfall at Madras coincides, I am informed, with the periodicity of the cyclones in the adjoining Bay of Bengal” (a relation which is more than doubtful) “as worked out by the Government Astronomer at Mauritius” (whose researches, however, as we have seen, related to a region remote from the Bay of Bengal), “some coincidence between maritime casualties, rainfalls, and sun-spots appeared at least possible.” In passing, I may note that if any such relation were established, it would be only an extension of the significance of the cycle of cyclones, and could have no independent value. It would certainly follow, if the cycle of cyclones is made out, that shipwrecks being more numerous, merchants would suffer, and we should have the influence of the solar spots asserting itself in the _Gazette_. From the cyclic derangement of monetary and mercantile matters, again, other relations also cyclic in character would arise. But as all these may be inferred from the cycle of cyclones once this is established, we could scarcely find in their occurrence fresh evidence of the necessity of that much begged-for solar observatory. The last great monetary panic in this country, by the way, occurred in 1866, at a time of minimum solar maculation. Have we here a decisive proof that the sun rules the money market, the bank rate of discount rising to a maximum as the sun-spots sink to a minimum, and _vice versâ_? The idea is strengthened by the fact that the American panic in 1873 occurred when spots were very numerous, and its effects have steadily subsided as the spots have diminished in number; for this shows that the sun rules the money market in America on a principle diametrically opposed to that on which he (manifestly) rules the money market in England, precisely as the spots cause drought in Calcutta and plenteous rainfall at Madras, wet south-westers and dry south-westers at Oxford, and wet south-easters and dry south-easters at St. Petersburg. Surely it would be unreasonable to refuse to recognize the weight of evidence which thus tells on both sides at once.