WEATHER CYCLE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 777, 29 March 1910, Page 11

WEATHER CYCLE.

MR. KEELE'S THEORY. SUPPORT. CLAIMED FROM BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY. Mr. T. W. Keele, Sydney Harbour Trust Commissioner, claims to havo at last solved'!the problem of tho Weather Cycle. The elusivo period, sought in vain by so many meteorologists, is, he says, 171 years. Mr. Keolc has almost completed a comprehensive paper, which he proposes to read before the Royal on the subject. .He recently gave a brief outline of his theory of periodicity. Sir Alexander Binnie' and some of tho greatest engineers, he said, have not despised the subject, many papers have been written, and many learned men have given years of close study to it : . In his spare time for over four years Mr. Keele has been making a close study of the weather problem, in the hope of.; satisfying himself as to the existence of periodicity, and, if so, in what order of time. He regards the attaining of a true knowledge, of periodicity as the crown of hydraulic engineering. "I'devoted my attention," said Mr. Keele, "at first to Australian records of rainfall; but, although similar weather seemed to'recur at intervals of 19 years, which. Mr. Russell; had .long, ago discovered, our experiences as-time went on, and particularly during the ;last 14 °r 16 years,' along the east coast of Australia, where a .very "remarkable shortage in the rainfall has occurred, havo convjneed me that periodicity could not be depended- upon at 49-year intervals; although there were evidences that some mysterious influence affected the weather every 19 years. All'the records showed this, especially those in the farwest; and particularly Horsham and Adelaide. ; • An Important Step, L "I then studied the flood records of the Darling River and Lake George, in the hope of. arriving at some clue to guide me'-in solving the problem. It wilPbe remembered that .Mr. Russell had collected'.Jill''information concerning tliem.iup to,the;time of.'his death; but they did not appear to. afford much help, until the diagrams he had commenced were plotted up to date, when I immediately saw that an important step had been gained, and I could hot help thinking..what- : a pity it was:that Mr. ; Russell had not lived to seo the outcome of his work, for I feel sure that he would have been the first.to grasp.the extreme importance of the Lake George curve, as it stands to-day. With its help-it .cannot be doubted that he would have discovered in a very muohshorter time than I have that the 1.9 year period is only a cphstituent part of a longer period. ■There is evidence' in his'pape'rs which he.read'before the.Royal Society, that, he suspected 'this,' but he was unable to demonstrate.it at the time, for' ;he_was ; not ; in*possession of all ihe data which I havo':since! been able to collect;It : 1.885 that Mr. Russell; estab-: ilishecl; an ; automatic, gauge in ■!.Lake .George,,in ord.er,.-to.register.the fiuctuar--ttipns, ofrthe water- surface,'and. the recqrd it has since-made has enabled me to extend;his diagrams.to the present: time.; It clearly shows a period of 57' year 5.:...... -, . ; ::-:. : ,

'■_ "I; became^so; much -impressed with' thisfact that I immediately constructed a residual mass curve 1 from the Sydney in order to afford a-, comparison: A. basin like Lake Geor'|e',° ■haying no outlet, is. a natural, rain--gauge and, evaporator, and the ourve it Supplies, is -true,' natural-' residualcurve. It is remarkable what.a very'close agreement there is between the Sydney and the ; Lake George records. "' •■'•, "■ : ! ".-; .•:• ''■•■■■■■':■ ■• "•' Wonderfully Confirmed;' - "The only /other, continuous, long Australian record: is the Adelaide I 'one, and this'wheh. plotted.up" to"date confirms ini'wonderful manner,the deductions;, made from' a scrutiny .of the' Lake' Georgo .record; ,i It' "shows that similar' weaiher.-.is.: not every ' 19 ■years'; a}th.Qugli,,tlie. .change: at .that in-, ■terval is very clearly defined; butpfoves that the-.weather they have been experiencing at-Adelaidc during-the last 12 years, vi?., from 1897 to 1909, has been' almost ah'exact repetition of what they had during the 12" years from 1840 to 1852 (57 years ago). Early'last year 1 was so much impressed,:with this development of., my study, that I longed for some 'reliable. record which would extend further back into the past, and I wondered if it. might be possible to obtain sorrio information concerning the Nile River, in' Egypt, which"derives its water from the Abyssinian tableland, almost directly- under' the equator, where the rainfall is so regular that the flood comes down every year in the same month.". I wrdto accordingly to the Director of Egyptian Surveys, and he kindly sent-mo his report,on the Nile, in which I found a table .giving' the maximum height of the annual inundation: of the Nile as far back as 1736 and up to 1905/ From this record I constructed a residual curve,: and it became evident that its period must bo either 114 years or 171 years. On comparing this curve with one derived from the' record compiled by the.late. Mr. Symons, whose valuable work on British rainfall is universally admired, 1 found that although it is quite a different,curve to that'of the Nile, as ours is also, 57-year "periods are clearly discernible in it. " Historical events from Walford's"and "other catalogues, were hunted up, and I found that the long droughts and wet seasons shown in' the British curve, and also in the Padua curve, which I subsequently added to my diagram, were repeated far back : into the past at regular intervals of years. Biblical Draughts. "Mr. Russell had previously shown that the Biblical/'drd'ughts, the date's of which are- given on the margins of the authorised version of-the English Bible, were all coincident with .the; 19-year period; but' there was one drought he omitted,'which goes far to confirm the. truth of the 171-year period (if the dates can bo relied upon), arid that is the long' drought so frequently referred to by the Prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the commencement of which in B.C. 612 was foretold by Jeremiah, and after, jt had. extended to B.C. 589, in that year its continuance for a further term of 40 years was predicted by Ezekiel. "This remarkable drought is clearly shown to bo repeated in the Nile's curve, commencing in A.D. 1782, and terminating in A.D: 1845. "If the dates given in tho'margin of the Bible can bo, relied upon, I fail to see.how the drought can bo taken in any other way but as confirmations of the 171-year period. On consulting the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica,' vol. xxvii., page 11, it will bo seen that recent investigation -shows that tho .correctness of the marginal dates (which have been ascribed to Bishop Ussher), up to tho.year B.C. 732, have been established by tho testimony of the monuments in Babylonia, Assyria, and Egypt. Tho interval of time,' B.C. ■ 612 plus 1782 equal 2394 years, which is exactly 14 cycles of 171 years, fixes tho commencement of tho drought, and a study of the diagram will leave little doubt that Ezekiel's prophecy was verified, if there is any truth in periodicity. "I am strongly convinced," concluded Mr. Keele, "that as a result of my Investigations, tho 1781-year oyolo 1b tha - l rue period «i jerindicii*-.'*-