Now the point of the recent observations is that the fluctuations in the sun's heat, due to the periodic increase and subsidence of sun-spot disturbances--such fluctuations having been long recognized as having regular cyclic intervals of about eleven years--are instrumental in effecting changes in the terrestrial weather. According to the paper just mentioned, it would appear to be demonstrated that the periods of decreased rainfall in India have a direct and relatively unvarying relationship to the prevalence of the sun-spots, and that, therefore, it has now become possible, within reasonable limits, to predict some years in advance the times of famine in India. So important a conclusion as this is certainly not to be passed over lightly, and all the world, scientific and unscientific alike, will certainly watch with acute interest for the verification of this seemingly startling practical result of so occult a science as solar spectroscopy.
The theory of the decomposition of the elements is closely bound up with the meteoritic theory. In a word, it may be said of each that Professor Lockyer is firmly convinced that all the evidence that has accumulated in recent years is so strongly in favor as to bring these theories almost to a demonstration. The essence of the meteoritic theory, it will be recalled, is that all stars have their origin in nebulae which consist essentially of clouds of relatively small meteorites. It will be recalled further that Professor Lockyer long ago pointed out that stars pass through a regular series of changes as to temperature, with corresponding changes of structure, becoming for a time hotter and hotter until a maximum is reached, and then passing through gradual stages of cooling until their light dies out altogether. Very recently Professor Lockyer has been enabled, through utilization of the multiform records accumulated during years of study, to define the various typical stages of the sidereal evolution; and not merely to define them but to illustrate them practically by citing stars which belong to each of these stages, and to give them yet clearer definition by naming the various elements which the spectroscope reveals as present in each.