SUN SPOTS AND PRICES OF GRAIN.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1326, 27 August 1886, Page 2

SUN SPOTS AND PRICES OF GRAIN.

Dr J. E. Taylor, the editor of Science Gossip, thus writes on the above sub- 1 j-ot: J Some subjects possess a strange and unaccountable vitality. People imagine they bare crushed them, strangled them, put them altogether ont of existence, and lo ! they re-appear as if they had simply laid down to a refreshing sleep. A few years ago the fascinating subject of sun stood in the front rank of so’eot fie discussions of| he day. Schwabo had discovered tha-. the spots on the sun’s dUc were of a periodic cha’acter, 11 years duration. General Sabine next demonstrated that Ihe variations of the earth’s magne'ism had a similar periodic time. In short, the influence of the sun’s condition was believed to be intimately felt in the physical condition of the earth and Its atmosphere. Thus, the

varitation|of the rainfall, of atmospherical pressure, storms, etc., were believed to te more or less dependent on the physical state of the son, of which the “spots"

are merely a visible Indication of the sta*es of its bea’th and condition. Is was an easy skip from such conclusion# to that made by the brilliant thinker, Professor Jevons, when he

boldly expressed his opinion that the periodicity of the sun’s spots could be traced further than the responsive periodical changes of the earth’s magnetism, rainfall, atmospheric pressure, and ihe like. He showed that famines, droughts, &c., were also periodic, and their periodicity bordered very nearly upon that of the sun’s spot-. He thought that even the depression in trade, Unsocial crises, &c., were only tha remoter cfLcts of the corresponding variations in the physical condition of the sun. I am led to these historic and interes'ing recollections by the fact that they have just come up again in Nature Mr Frederick Chambers, of Bombay, has written a lengthy and readable, and a'.t igether most important, article on “Sunspots and Prices of Indian Food Grains." He attempts to show there is a direct connection between the variation of prices in India and the sun spots. Leaving out the influence of wars, &c , he shows from carefully worked out tables that from the year 1813 to 1882. tha prices of food-grains in various chief places In India have undergone a remarkably periodicity of 11 years’ duration. Ten dis ricts were selected and in every one of them, far the last 50 years, Mr Chambers shows, there has been a periodical rise and fall once every .11 years. He thinks that a practical result may ensue from what he regards as a discovery—a discovery, however, which reminds one of the practical manner with which Joseph carried out hia own interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream ! Mr Chambers thinkit affords a certain amount of power toprcdict the variation of prices in the coming sunspot cycle, and that there is some resaon fur belleving the present period of low prices followed the last maxL n«m of s twpots, and that a brisk rise of prices wi Itake place in the Deccan and Madras in 1887 or 1888, and, In more northern districts, a year or two later.