SUNSPOTS AGAIN.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 7 April 1926, Page 7

SUNSPOTS AGAIN.

TBit Kll’lG SOL Alt STORMS. Ei'T'ECT OX HUMAN HEALTH. MORE RHEUMATISM COMING. We must look iorwnrd to a period which will be marked by a great increase in rheumatic amt neuralgia cases, according to the Abbe Moreux. l.Jie famous Trench priest-astronomer, director of the Bouiges Observatoiy. mis seems a daring prediction to make; nevertheless it is based on scien. like races, claim Abbe Moreux. In October and November last, says the Abbe in the course of an aiticle published a lew weeks ago in the London Daily Mail, J 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 front the 12th to the 17th of January, and people have written me 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 front now. But predictions of the greatest importance are possible in a general sense by the study of the laws which govern tTTe 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 i entre 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. Vet 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 sup, the centre of our planetary system? It is a gigantic hall of blazing gas. an immense fire that has been burning for hundreds of millions of years. But the combustion of tin's huge incandescent mass is byno means even and regular. It is as though every eleven years a great stall of stokers fed anew the colossal lire.

In the year 1923, during which comparative calm reigned in the sun, our indtginnrv staff of stokers busily set to work ’to feed the flames, and the consequences of their labour were not long awaited. The furnace quickly biinied up brightly once more, and todav it is "in full activity. Tempests of flame, terrific cyclones of fire, are sweeping the sun, some of them of such magnitude 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 until the year 1927, and then will diminish gradually until 1934.

Astronomers have pointed out that these periods of activity are reflect-'' by a greater emission of heat by the sun. Heat means electrical energy, am! every form of energy known to phvsical science. Let ns leave on one side for to-day calorific phenomena and devote our attention to a curious and little-known fact. The decomposition of the solar gases burls into space at the active periods, such as we are now traversing, millions of lons of atoms, which gradually. under the force of the pressure <;f 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, apd even as far south as the latitude of Loudon, proving that the electric induction of the sun is approaching its maximum.

Hlimau Bodies Disturbed

It is not surprising to anyone who will reflect tor a' moment that this increase of solar electrical energy should lone its effect upon animal organisms. C) 111- own bodies, like those ol the lower animals, are subjected to additional nervous excitement which is translated into the most varied phenomena, loremost being neuralgia and rheumatic, pains. I pointed out so .ong ago as 1902 the correlation between such bodily affections and tiic 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 utter, y ig»orant of the mechanism of neuralgia 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, piobablv is rendered more acti\e now bv solar energy, with consequent reaction on our organisms. Our earthly bodies may be compared to wireless de_ tec-tors, which pick up the solar waves and legistor their slightest variations.