EFFECT OF THE MOON.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4512, 8 January 1923, Page 2

EFFECT OF THE MOON.

Of late years some evidence lias accumulated which seems to connect the moon with weather cycles. It has been obtained by two professional astronomers working widely apart and quite independently. Once every month the moon is at a maximum distance north and south of .the equator, but this maxiinum declination, as it. is called, is not. always the same. It varies through a nine-teen-year cycle, once in t«iat period having its least value and once its greatest. By carefully comparing rainfall with these varying maxiinum and minimum declinations of the moon Mr Russell, director pfi 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.

zk similar connection has also been traced with regard t.o the rainfall of South Africa, the investigation in this case being carried out. by Mr Neville, of the Natal Observatory.

The explanation suggested is .that a permanent cloud belt, follows the moon because of its attraction bn pur

atmosphere, and thus causes the periodical 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 similar investigation were undm? tokch north of the equator a similar connection could be traced.