Sun-spots and the Wheat Crop.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 104, 19 September 1901, Page 3

Sun-spots and the Wheat Crop.

Astrology, with its horoscopes and charts, may have been all a vain dream of our forefathers, but, at least, one heavenly body still : retains an influence, in determining the fortunes of men. The sun, according to the late Professor Jevons, is chiefly responsible for financial crises. This may or may not be sober fact, but at least there seems to be scientific ground for believing that sun-spots affect rainfall and indirectly the supply" of wheat and the price in the market. The theory that tha price. of wheat is highest when there are fewest spots was suggested a century ago by Sir William Herschel, but in his time there had been no' continuous record of the changes visible on the sun's surface. Such a record was first begun in 1830, when it was proved that the maximum of sun-spots recurs every eleven years. Later on weather records indicated that cyclones in the Er.st and West Indies, and rainfall in some regions, varied according to the number of sunspots. The most complete observations have been made in India, where ' for nearly half a century there, has been a perfect record kept both of the rainfall and also of the spotted area of the sun. The con - nection between the two phenomena has been.set forth in a work by Sir Norman Lockyer, director of the Solar Physics Observatory at South Kensington, and Professor of Astronomical Physics in the Royal College of Science. His' conclusions are that the rainfall is excessive in India when the spots ara fewest and also when they are greatest, and that the years' between these two extremes are periods of drought and famine. Similar observations have beeu made in reference to the Nile and Mississippi Valleys, and the same connection has been found to hold. A Manitoba paper, which furnishes this evidence, suggests that a record should be kept in that great wheat-growing district,* and it points to the popular belief that the greatest crops of Western Canada occur about every seventh year. It is stated that the largest group of spots ever seen is now forming on tha sun's face, so apparently we are to expect a tremendous rainfail, and • afterwards an enormous supply of' wheat. Were the theory once proved beyond a doubt, it would be easy to predict with absolute certainty the years of fatness and the years of leanness. —Press.