Pleasant Ways in Science. Richard Anthony Proctor
for under circumstances which visibly affect the emission of light, and presumably affect the emission of heat also, from portions of his surface. Nor can we wonder if terrestrial magnetism, which is directly dependent on the sun’s emission of heat, should be affected by the existence of spots upon his surface.
It is otherwise with the effects which have recently been associated with the sun’s condition. It may or may not prove actually to be the case that wind and rain vary in quantity as the sun-spots vary in number (at least when we take in both cases the average for a year, or for two or three years), but it cannot be said that any such relation was antecedently to be expected. When we consider what the sun actually does for our earth, it seems unlikely that special effects such as these should depend on relatively minute peculiarities of the sun’s surface. There is our earth, with her oceans and continents, turning around swiftly on her axis, and exposed to his rays as a whole. Or, inverting the way of viewing matters, there is the sun riding high in the heavens of any region of the earth, pouring down his rays upon that region. We can understand how in the one case that rotating orb of the earth may receive rather more or rather less heat from the sun when he is spotted than when he is not, or how in the other way of viewing matters, that orb of the sun may give to any region rather more or rather less heat according as his surface is more or less spotted. But that in special regions of that rotating earth storms should be more or less frequent or rainfall heavier or lighter, as the sun’s condition changes through the exceedingly small range of variation due to the formation of spots, seems antecedently altogether unlikely; and equally unlikely the idea that peculiarities affecting limited regions of the sun’s surface should affect appreciably the general condition of the earth. If a somewhat homely comparison may be permitted, we can well understand how a piece of meat roasting before a fire may receive a greater or less supply of heat on the whole as the fire undergoes slight local changes (very slight indeed they must be, that the illustration may be accurate); but it would be extremely surprising if, in consequence of such slight changes in the fire, the roasting of particular portions of the joint were markedly accelerated or delayed, or affected in any other special manner.
But of course all such considerations as to antecedent probabilities must give way before the actual evidence of observed facts. Utterly inconsistent with all that is yet known of the sun’s physical action, as it may seem, on à priori grounds, to suppose that spots, currents, or other local disturbances of the sun’s surface could produce any but general effects on the earth as a whole, yet if we shall find that particular effects are produced in special regions of the earth’s surface in cycles unmistakably synchronizing with the solar-spot-cycle, we must accept the fact, whether we can explain it or not. Only let it be remembered at the outset that the earth is a large place, and the variations of wind and calm, rain and drought, are many and various in different regions. Whatever place we select for examining the rainfall, for example, we are likely to find, in running over the records of the last thirty years or so, some seemingly oscillatory changes; in the records of the winds, again, we are likely to find other seemingly oscillatory changes; if none of these records provide anything which seems in any way to correspond with the solar spot-cycle, we may perchance find some such cycle in the relative rainfall of particular months, or in the varying wetness or dryness of particular winds, and so forth. Or, if we utterly fail to find any such relation in one place we may find it in another, or not improbably in half-a-dozen places among the hundreds which are available for the search. If we are content with imperfect correspondence between some meteorological process or another and the solar-spot cycle, we shall be exceedingly unfortunate indeed if we fail to find a score of illustrative instances. And if we only record these, without noticing any of the cases where we fail to find any association whatever—in other words, as Bacon puts it, if “we note when we hit and never note when we miss,” we shall be able to make what will seem a very strong case indeed. But this is not exactly the scientific method in such cases. By following such a course, indeed, we might prove almost anything. If we take, for instance, a pack of cards, and regard the cards in order as corresponding to the years 1825 to 1877, and note their colours as dealt once, we shall find it very difficult to show that there is any connection whatever between the colours of the cards corresponding to particular years and the number of spots on the sun’s face. But if we repeat the process a thousand times, we shall find certain instances among the number, in which red suits correspond to all the years when there are many spots on the sun, and black suits to all the years when there are few spots on the sun. If now we were to publish all such deals, without mentioning anything at all about the others which showed no such association, we should go far to convince a certain section of the public that the condition of the sun as to spots might hereafter be foretold by the cards; whence, if the public were already satisfied that the condition of the sun specially affects the weather of particular places, it would follow that the future weather of these places might also be foretold by the cards.
I mention this matter at the outset, because many who are anxious to find some such cycle of seasons as Sir John Herschel thought might be discovered, have somewhat overlooked the fact that we must not hunt down such a cycle per fas et nefas. “Surely in meteorology as in astronomy,” Mr. Lockyer writes, for instance, “the thing to hunt down is a cycle, and if that is not to be found in the temperate zone, then go to the frigid zones or the torrid zone to look for it; and if found, then above all things and in whatever manner, lay hold of, study, and read it, and see what it means.” There can be no doubt that this is the way to find a cycle, or at least to find what looks like a cycle, but the worth of a cycle found in this way will be very questionable.7
I would not have it understood, however, that I consider all the cycles now to be referred to as unreal, or even that the supposed connection between them and the solar cycle has no existence. I only note that there are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of relations among which cycles may be looked for, and that there are perhaps twenty or thirty cases in which some sort of cyclic association between certain meteorological relations and the period of the solar spots presents itself. According to the recognized laws of probability, some at least amongst these cases must be regarded as accidental. Some, however, may still remain which are not accidental.
Among the earliest published instances may be mentioned Mr. Baxendell’s recognition of the fact that during a certain series of years, about thirty, I think, the amount of rainfall at Oxford was greater under west and south-west winds than under south and south-east winds when sun-spots were most numerous, whereas the reverse held in years when there were no spots or few. Examining the meteorological records of St. Petersburg, he found that a contrary state of things prevailed there.
The Rev. Mr. Main, Director of the Radcliffe Observatory at Oxford, found that westerly winds were slightly more common (as compared with other winds) when sun-spots were numerous than when they were few.
Mr. Meldrum, of Mauritius, has made a series of statistical inquiries into the records of cyclones which have traversed the Indian Ocean between the equator and 34 degrees south latitude, in each year from 1856 to 1877, noting the total distances traversed by each, the sums of their radii and areas, their duration in days, the sums of their total areas, and their relative areas. His researches, be it marked in passing, are of extreme interest and value, whether the suggested connection between sun-spots and cyclones (in the region specified) be eventually found to be a real one or not. The following are his results, as described in Nature by a writer who manifestly favours very strongly the doctrine that an intimate association exists between solar maculation (or spottiness) and terrestrial meteorological phenomena:—
“The period embraces two complete, or all but complete, sun-spot periods, the former beginning with 1856 and ending in 1867, and the latter extending from 1867 to about the present time [1877]. The broad result is that the number of cyclones, the length and duration of their courses, and the extent of the earth’s surface covered by them all, reach the maximum in each sun-spot period during the years of maximum maculation, and fall to the minimum during the years of minimum maculation. The peculiar value of these results lies in the fact that the portion of the earth’s surface over which this investigation extends, is, from its geographical position and what may be termed its meteorological homogeneity, singularly well fitted to bring out prominently any connection that may exist between the condition of the sun’s surface and atmospheric phenomena.”
The writer