WARS IN 1928.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4825, 20 March 1925, Page 3

WARS IN 1928.

SCIENTISTS PROPHECY. Do the disturbances in the sun that we see on its surface as sunspots affect the human nervous system as they undoubtedly do atmospheric conditions and movements ? Do they make us irritable .and stir us up to quarrels and perhaps to war and tumult ? A French scientist thinks that they do. He is the Abbe Th. Moveux, director of the Bourges observatory. READING THE SUNSPOTS. The Abbe has held hrs opinions, for nearly 20 years past, and in 1910 he warned scientific men that they should look out for the results of the approaching sunspot maximum. Now, after the Great War, he warns us again that another maximum will occur in 1928. What has it in store for us ? The Abbe has drawn a curve, as substantiating his theory. It represents the periodic frequency of solar activity, and the peaks of the curve are marked by wars. The exact correspondence of magnetic disturbance on the earth has long been accepted by scientific men, and the recent discovery on Mt. Wilson, California, that sunspots are magnetic, furnishes the reason for it. The Abbe’s, theory of their influence on human irritability is a large leap, but it is interesting. . “That the sun is the sole regulator of our climatology is no longer in doub.t to-day among those who have kept up with the progress of science,” he sayis. “Herschel, noted many years ago that in his day there was a correlation between .the price of wheat and the sunspot curve, which represented solar activity. Our means of transportation lessen crises and famines, and .translated into modern terms, Herschel’s idea is this: There is correlation, speaking generally, between solar activity and climate. Those who doubt this have only to read the little volume that I published in 1901, with several successive editions ; it is entitled ‘The Sun and the Prediction of the Weather.’ “Heat, electricity, magnetism, are only the effects of one and the same cause—-the disturbance in the solar furnace that takes place about every, 11 years, on an average.

“Tn fact, every 11 years, not only does the earth feel the recriide.>cenee of the polar activity in the form of heat, but the magnetic needle is affected and our compasses get out oj order. By phenomenon of electric induction yet to be explained thoroughly. the polar auroras increase in intensity, cyclones plough up the seas, and internal gases heave up the earth’s crust, and volcanoes erupt. There is a relation between earthquakes and the •sun’s activity, and the theory formulated by me in 1902 has enabled me to foretell all. the seismic crises of importance in the past 23 years !

“But the life of the sun does not stop here; every 33 to 35 yearo a bunring fever develops in the depths of its flaming atmosphere, and our climatic conditions reflect it, especially in our own region. The 35 years: of which I speak arc only an average, as Bruckner •showedi some time ago, but I claim for myself .the credit of connecting these periods with, the solar activity.

“I have gone even further: I have maintained since 1902 that our bodily organism is influenced by the electric flux—call it by this, name for lack of any other—emanating from the sun. In fact, I long ago proved that a number of persons arc more inimitable at the moment of solar magnetic crises ; these unconscious influences are often the cause, in certain feeble subjects, of attacks of gout, headache, rheumatism, neuralgia, etc., and even of cholera epidemics. Since 1903 I have been riiaking statistical study, from which it appears that the number oc penalties in schools is always larger when there are magnetic perturbations due to the sun.

“In a lecture before the general assembly of the International Scientific Association at Brussels on April 7, 1910, 1 ask'ed of my auditors- —all scientific men —whether it would not be legitimate to see in the exasperation of. active forces on the sun the cause of wars.

“As a smile went round J threw on the screen a chart complete. It was seen that periods of solar calm agree with moments of peace universal expositions, and large commerce; whereas the brusque ascents of the curves, showing magnetic disturbances, correspond to the fury of .the nations.

“I have read somewhere of a Russian scientist who discovered this parallelism ; it may he that, isolated as he was, ho had no knowledge of former researches ; but I can assure you that the idea harks back as far as Herschel at the very least. Renan speaks of it in-his works; there is, then, nothing new under the sun; but what is new is the discover}’ that wars correspond to magnetic storms, iis the instructive curve that I first drew 20 years ago shows clearly.

“The solar curve will begin to rise again in 1925, and will reach its peak in 1928. Attention, then! I tender again to our Governments the warning that I gave in Brussels in 1910!”