READING THE STARS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 248, 30 March 1880, Page 2

READING THE STARS.

According to a German professor, all the late bad weather, and more, might have been expected from tlm position of the planets, one of which, namely Jupiter, is a thousand tinms larger than the earth ; and, what is worse, wo arc yet even fairly at the beginning of evils. The bad times, whatever cynical people may say to the contrary, are to begin in 1880, and to last until 1885. We are, he says, approaching one of the most perilous and malefic period* of the earth’s history, for since the commencement of the Christian era the perihelia of the four great planets of the solar I system—Jnpiter, Uranus, Saturn, and Neptune—have not been coincidental. But this is about to occur, after 1880, for the first time in 2000 years All four of these planets will be at their nearest approach to the sun, or in perihelion. So that for a few years, say from 1880 to 1885, if the professor is right, the vitality of every living thing will bo put to a severe and trying ordeal. His view is, that when one or more of the large planets are nearest to t o sun, | the temperature and condition of our } atmosphere are so disturbed as to cause : injurious vicissitudes, terrific prolonged droughts, etc., resulting in the destruction of crops and pestilence among human beings and domestic animals.