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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4005, 23 May 1884, Page 4

In a letter addressed to the Philadelphia Star, Dr R. T. Trail remarks :—" We shall not wait long for the appearance of the expected pestilences, for avc are approaching a very pestilential period. Jupiter, 1000 times as large as the earth, revolves round the sun every 12 years. Saturn, once in about 30 years; Uranus, once in about 84 years ; Neptune, once in 164 years. The perihelion of all these planets does not occur at the same time more than once in thousands of years. In the sixth century, and again in the sixteenth, the first three werecoincidentally in perihelion; and these were the most pestilential periods of the Christian eia. The perihelion periods of Jupiter and Saturn coincide Avith the extensive preA'alence of plague, cholera, and other epidemics. But in the future, from cA r en no at to 1885, Aye are to haA'e Avhat has not hap- ; pened for 1800 years—viz., the nearest approach to the sun of all four of these large planets coincidentally. The obvious deduction from this fact and theory is, that the changes of the earth's temperature, and the changed condition of its atmosphere, consequent on the interference with or abstraction of tho usual amount of its light and heat, Avill be increasingly unfavorable to life and health on our globe. From 1880 to 1885 the adverse influences will be tho greatest; and then they will gradually diminish."