SUNSPOTS AGAIN.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 78, 3 April 1926, Page 15

SUNSPOTS AGAIN.

TERRIFIC SOLAR STORMS. EFFECT ON HUMAN HEALTH. MORE RHEUMATISM COMING. We must look forward to a period which will be marked by a great increase in rheumatic and neuralgia cases, according to the Abbe Moreux, the famous French priest-astronomer, director of the Bourges Observatory. This seems a daring prediction to make; nevertheless it is based on scientific facts, claims Abbe Moreux. In October and November last, says the Abbe in the course of an article published a few weeks .ago in the London "Daily Mail," I was able to announce to the exact days the beginning and ending of the spell of intense cold which Great Britain and a large section of Western Europe experienced from the 12th to the 17th of January, and people have written mc in large numbers asking by what method a meteorologist can issue weather predictions so far ahead. As a matter of fact science to-day knows no infallible means of predicting exactly what the weather is likely to be six or eight months from now. But predictions of the greatest importance are possible in a general sense by the study of the laws which govern the sun and which have an immediate and direct repercussion on our planet. Why do the years pass on our earth without resembling one another? In its course round the sun our earth follows the same orbit relatively to the centre of our planetary system. The poles are inclined every year in the same manner, so that the summers and winters shall be distributed in the same way. Yet the seasons vary from year to year. Meteorologists have consulted their statistics in search of a simple law of periodicity and they have found nothing. Why? Because the cause of weather changes does not lie on our earth, but is to be found in the sun Terrific Eruptions. What exactly is the sun, the centre of our planetary system ? It is a gigantic ball of blazing gas, an immense fire that has been burning for hundreds of millions of years. But the combustion of this huge incandescent mass is by no means even and regular. It is as though every eleven years a great staff of stokers fed anew the colossal fire. In the year 1923, during which comparative calm reigned in the ! sun, our imaginary staff of stokers busily set to work to feed the flames, and the consequences of their labour were not long awaited. The furnace quickly burned up brightly once more, and today it is in full activity. Tempests of flame, terrific cyclones of fire, are sweeping the sun, some of them of such maomtude that they are visible to the naked eye as spots. Still further solar eruptions may be looked forward to very shortly—gigantic gaseous explosions hurling from the solar atmosphere torrents of. metallic vapour to a height of 500,000 to 600,000 miles. This solar activity will increase umtil the year 1927, and then will diminish gradually until 1934. Astronomers have pointed out that these periods of activity are reflected by a greater emission. of heat by the sun. Heat means electrical energy, and every form of energy, known to physical science. Let us leave on one side for to-day calorific phenomena and devote our attention to a curious and littleknown fact. The decomposition of the solar" gases hurjs into space at the such as we are now traversing,-millions of ton's of atoms, which gradually, under the force of the pressure 'of light, reach our earth and the other planets. These atoms, and probably also the electrons of which they are composed, when.they strike our atmosphere, electrify its outer layers and give rise to most curious effects. One of the most visible of these effects is a recrudescence of the Aurora Borealis, which recently has been visible once or twice in Scotland, and even as far south as the latitude of London, proving that the electric induction of the sun is approaching its maximum. Human Bodies Disturbed. It is not surprising to anyone who. will reflect for a moment that this increase of solar electrical energy should have its effect upon animal organisms. Our own (bodies, like those of the lower animals, are subjected to additional nervous excitement which is translated into the most varied phenomena, foremost being neuralgia and rheumatic pains. I pointed out so long ago as 1902 the correlation between such bodily affections and the polar auroras—that is to say, solar activity. Since solar activity is on the increase at present, we may expect more rheumatic complaints until the year 1930. Physiologists are still utterly ignorant of the mechanism of neuralgic complaints, but they do know that electricity acts directly on our nerve cells. Another interesting point is that the dissociation of hydrogen atoms into helium which is going on in the sun and which process constitutes the new rays discovered recently by Millikan, probably is rendered more active now by solar energy, with consequent reaction on our organisms. Our earthly bodies may be compared to wireless detectors, which pick up the solar waves and register their slightest variations.