EXTRAORDINARY PREDICTION.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2009, 2 August 1880, Page 2

EXTRAORDINARY PREDICTION.

[Prom the " Medical Record."j A number of astronomers engaged in observing the sun during the last eclipse agree that its condition appears tj have recently undergone a great change, and Professor Lockyer inclines to the opinion that the changes must have a very serious result. Observers were surprised to find that the burning hydrogen which was formerly present in the corona has largely disappeared. The spectroscope proves this beyond any possibility of doubt. It had been previously known that for the last four years the spots, which were formerly so frequent on the sun, have been fewer, and the close connection between the sun's spots and terrestrial magnetism had been once more demonstrated by the marked decrease of magnetic activity during the lame period. The disappearance of sun spots, and the disappearance of hydrogen from the corona, means that solar activity and solar heat have decreased. Now the decrease of Bolar heat • means in its earlier stage an increase of heat on the earth, for gases thrown out by the sun when in a Btate of activity, and which act ae a shield to protec* the earth, disappear as the heat decreases- According to this view, the sun is taking precisely the course which must end in tho burning up of the earth at a comparatively early period. But the heavens are said by some well-informed persons to indicate, on much more proximate evidence, that we are rapidly approaching what will be one of the most perilous and malific periods of the earth's history. Since the commencement of the Christian era the perihelia of the four great planets of the solar system—Jupiter, Uranus, Saturn, and Neptune —have not been coincidental. But thie is about to occur, and in the language of Knapp, who has traced the history cf the greatest epidemics that ever afflicted the human r*ce to the perihelia of these planets, there will soon be times of great pestilence. The view is that when one or more of the large planets is nearest to the. sun the temperature and condition of our atmosphere are eo disturbed as to cause injurious vicissitudes, terrific rains, prolonged drought*, &c, resulting in tho destruction of crops, and pestilence among human beings and domestic animals. Dr Knapp has collected a mass cf statistical data, all going to show that perihelion dates have alwavs been marked by unusual mortality, and that sickness and death have invariably corresponded with the planets in perihelion years at the same time b The revolution ot Jupiter round the sun ia accomplished in a little lees than twelve yearr, of Saturn in a little less than thirty years, of Oranus in about eighty-four years. If it be true, therefore, that the perihelia of these planets occasion atmospheric conditions ur» favourable to life, pestilential periods should occur once in twelve years, and still more widespread epidemics at longer intervals. In tracing the history of epidemics for more than 2000 years. Dr. Knapp finds the fact in all cases to validate the theory. Thus in the sixth and again in the sixteenth, centuries, three of these planet* were coincident in perihelion, and those were the most pestilential times of the Christian era. But soon after 1880, for the first time in 26,000 years, all four of these planets will be at their nearest approach to the sun or perihelion.

So that for a few years, say, from 1880 to 1885, tbo vitality of every living thing will be put to a severe and trying ordeal. Some -persons thick that they see in the oigns of the times evidence of great disasters at hand in the immediate future. Extremes of heat and cold, the prevalence of floods, and disasters, the general failure of the potato -crop, the widespread chill fever among human beings, and the equal presence of the epizootic among animals, are mentioned as among the premonitions of the rapidly approaching perihelion. That the conjoint perihelion of all the large placets of the solar system, one of which, Jupiter, is a thousand times as large as the earth, must disturb our atmosphere and -temperature very considerably, is probable; that this disturbance must be injurious to health and life is certain ; and that these periods have heretofore been pestilential is a matter of record.