The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1907.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 1979, 15 January 1907, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1907.

Foil a couple of clays tho sun has been obscured, and welcome rain has fallen alike upon the just and upon the unjust from one end of tho colony to the other. For many weeks “Old Sol” refused to hide his brilliant head behind a cloud, and went on warming things up until in some districts agriculturists began to bo alarmed at the prospects i of a bad season for stock and crops. In one jilaco at least a day was fixed for prayer and supplication to invoke tho Ruler of all things to persuade the mighty orb to cease his scorching and permit tho clouds to gather and descend upon the parched earth; but tho prayers were too long deferred and arc not now a necessity. Whether or not they would have been effective is a matter of belief with which we do not propose to interfere; but as comparatively few people have studied the actual relationship between the sun and tho weather, or the importance of the sun to everyone who makes a business of agriculture, we propose to deal with that view of tho matter, because a wider knowledge of the details might be of some benefit at least in tho important pursuits directly connected with tho soil. AVlien scientists talk of sunspots, and endeavour to ascertain the laws that regulate them, the farmer, as a rule, is oblivious of the fact that the subject interests him personally, and that tho magnitude of those spots have a direct influence upon his bank account; nevertheless it is a fact, as we hope presently to show. To get at the bottom of the subject, then, let us say that tho sun is a very much younger world than our own in point of development, being still in a state of incandescence, while this little globe has cooled down into life-sustaining conditions. If the sun were unable to emit its rays in sufficient quantity and force to play upon the embryonic germs in the seeds which the farmer sows, and cause them to germinate, to split up the molecules in the soil to enable certain bacteria which live there to do their necessary work, or to separatribe atoms of hydrogen and oxygen so that the process of evaporation may go on, there would be little for the farmer to do but to sit down and pine and languish, and he would not be troubled with a banking account at all. The sun spots in turn have tlcir influence upon this work rs a whole, and therefore any material changes that take place upon .the surface of the sun have, as wo have said, a direct bearing upon the hanking account. A very few years ago these spots were very little understood, and it was not until the late Professor R.. A. Proctor drew attention to their nature and the spectroscope was used in tlieir analysis that their direct bearing upon our climate was suspected; but now it is certainly known that the sun is a mass of gaseous energy—an enormous cauldron of fiery dust in which inconceivable explosions toko place and send out flames for hundreds of thousands of miles. When these gases are in a state of comparative quiescence and there are little or no spots, the blazing face of tho sun pours down its licnt upon us and we

know the rosults; but when explosions take place the spots appeal*, varying from a couple of thousand to thirty thousand miles in diameter, and when they occur on the corona or edge of the sun their tongues of llnino may ho soon reaching to any distance up to forty or fifty thousand miles into space. It is easy to coneeivo, thoroforo, that such tremendous energy shot out in our direction communicates its gigantic force ti the surrounding other, and through it to our atmosphere, and when that occurs changes of weather are inevitable. An old illustration may boro ho used. If you drop a pebbio into a still pond at the contro every .atom of water in tho pond is disturbed, and tho ripple will extend to its edge in evory part, even though the pond bo many miles in-diameter, and so it is with Solar energy in the centre of our system. Every explosion that takes place there exorcises its influence upon us and alters our climate, particularly so when the oxplosion has taken place directly opposite to us, and tho flames shoot outin our direction. The attempt lias been made to systematise these spots (tho name given to the exploded areas from tbo appearance which they present- as wo look directly into them) with a view to ascertaining t-hoir cyclic periods, and so lorccasting the future of our climate il possible; but so far tho records show nothing liko reliable regularity, although it has been shown that when they do occur in more than ordinary magnitude or numbers, they precede times of disaster on the side of this globe nearest their in/lu Once, and a recent writer avers that from personal observation lie has found that tho influence of spots suddenly appearing on tho sun have been felt by a sudden change of weather within six hours from the first appearance. Although .we do not anticipate that mortgage deeds will over contain a proviso that tho lender may foreclose within six hours immediately preceding any Solar cataclysm, tho matter lias its interest for tho mortgagor and the mortgagee, notwithstanding, and if over science succeeds in reducing the phenomena to a well-defined'- system, it will at least enable us to make some provision for a rainy day.