I. Results of an inquiry into the periodicity of rainfall

The exceptionally heavy rainfall of the past spring and summer directed a large amount of attention to the records of rainfall in this country, and more than one investigator stated that he had found a certain periodicity existing in the quantity of rain annually collected. Dr. Meldrum, Professor Balfour Stewart, Mr. Hennessey, Professor Stanley Jevons, Dr. Hunter, and others, have also widely published theories based upon the assumption that the variation in the yearly amounts of fall depends in some manner upon solar phenomena as exhibited by the changes in the appearance of the sun’s surface, thereby indicating a cycle of approximately ten or eleven years’ duration; but even among the supporters of this so-termed “sun-spot” theory of 1 rainfall there are differences of opinion as to the exact nature of the influence an increase of sun-spots would exert upon the rainfall of any locality.