Abstract
Symons's Monthly Meteorological Magazine, July.—This number contains the completion of two interesting papers, by Mr. E. D. Archibald, on Indian famine-causing droughts, and their prevision. The principal facts are summarised as follows: (1) Extensive droughts occur in the dry area of Southern India at intervals of nine to twelve years, and usually, but not regularly, about a year before the sun-spot minimum. When the conditions are sufficiently acute, famine occurs in the following year. (2) A severe drought in the peninsular of Southern India is followed by a severe drought and ensuing famine in Northern India in about five cases out of seven. (3) Summer droughts tend to occur in Northern India in years of maximum sun-spot, connected in some way with the abnormal high pressure over Western Asia which prevails at such epochs. There is thus a double periodicity of droughts and famine in North India, and a single periodicity in South India in the sun-spot cycle, though the relation between the phenomena is too spasmodic and irregular to be utilised as a trustworthy factor for prevision.
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Scientific Serials . Nature 62, 335 (1900). https://doi.org/10.1038/062335a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/062335a0