EFFECT OF THE MOON.

Franklin Times, 3 January 1923, Page 5

EFFECT OF THE MOON.

<Xf late years some evidence has accumulated which seems to connect ifche moon with weather cycles. It Has been obta&ned by two professional astronomers working widely apaft and quite independently. Once every month the moon is. at a maximum distance north and south of (the equator,, but this maximum declination, as it is called is - not always the same. It vaUies ( through aj nineteen-year cycle, onc,e .in > that period having its least value and once its greatest. < ( : By careful comparing rainfall /with these; varyinig maxiniums and 'mimifitirii' declinations of the mopn, Mr Russell, director of the Sydney Observatory, has discovered that, so far as Australia is concerned, rainfall is greatest when the declination is greatest, and least when the declination is least. I A similar connection has also been traced with regard to (the rainfall of South Africa, the investigation in this case being carried out by Mr Neville, of the Natal Observatory, ii The explanation suggested is t’hat a' permanent cloud belt follows the moon because of its attraction on our atmosphere, and thus causes the periodicaly variation of rainfall in the southern hemisphere, No such phenomenon, says the Daily Chronicle, has been discovered in the northern hemisphere, but it is reasonable to assume that if A simi. lar investigation were undertaken north of the equator a similar connection could be traced.