Abstract
I FEEL some reluctance in coming forward to-night, with the result of my investigations into the periodicity of good and bad seasons—floods and droughts if you will—because they must come to you as a surprise, and they will make a claim on your confidence which at first sight you will probably not be disposed to grant. For myself I know that some years ago, if anyone had come to me stating thit it was possible to forecast the seasons many years in advance, I should have received the statement with incredulity. The difficulty in getting the facts together is very great. I have had to ask from history records of passing phenomena which it has been the habit of the historian to neglect; however, there will be before you a mass of evidence in support of my proposition, that there is a periodicity in weather. The weak point in the evidence is that history has not kept a regular and continuous account of droughts, but only recorded them when they became very prominent. The strong point is that all the data that history does give us is in favour of the nineteen years' cycle.
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On Periodicity of Good and Bad Seasons1. Nature 54, 379–380 (1896). https://doi.org/10.1038/054379a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/054379a0