|Antilles | 9| 8| 19| 12| 12| 10| 9| 16| 12| 10| 13| 12|11·8| |Cuba | 4| 3| 2| 3| 3| 4| 5| 2| 6| 5| 6| 4| 4 | |Chili and La Plata | 14| 10| 14| 8| 19| 11| 16| 15| 16| 9| 27| 8|13·9| |Peru, Columbia, Basins | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | of Amazons, xvi–xix | 92| 83| 92| 27|106| 79| 94| 93| 97| 77| 72| 90|87 | |New Zealand, 1869–79 | 31| 27| 37| 23| 22| 31| 27| 36| 37| 21| 27| 23|28·5| | Jan. 1850, Dec. 1857 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |Northern Hemisphere |153|162|143|161|126|124|141|156|154|171|151|168|150 | |Southern Hemisphere | 75| 43| 61| 66| 46| 42| 53| 39| 54| 55| 57| 46|53 | | 1821–1830 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |Northern Hemisphere | 31| 36| 31| 29| 33| 33| 20| 31| 24| 41| 26| 34|30 | |Southern Hemisphere | 2| --| 1| 1| 3| 1| 3| 2| 3| 2| 1| 1| 1·6| +-------------------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+----+ A glance at this table shows that for most countries in the northern hemisphere the rule that there are generally more earthquakes during the winter months—that is, from October to March—holds good. For countries which lie comparatively near to the Equator, and also for those countries in the southern hemisphere, the rule is not so clear. When examining this table it must be remembered that it does not enable us to judge of the relative frequency of earthquakes in different countries, inasmuch as the periods over which the records were taken are different in different cases. To the above table might be added the records of P. Merian, who examined the earthquakes felt in Basle up to 1831. As a result he found that during the winter months eighty shocks had been felt, whilst during the summer only forty. Taking the records for the two hemispheres from 1850–1857, compiled by Kluge,[102] in the northern hemisphere we have in the months between October and March 948 shocks against 862 in the remainder of the year. In the same months in the southern hemisphere we have for the corresponding periods the numbers 337 and 300, and thus both hemispheres would appear to follow the same rule. If, however, we examine the table we see that the two seasons are not so pronounced for the southern hemisphere as they are for the northern, and that there may be two or three periods of maximum disturbance as has been previously indicated. _Earthquakes and the planets and meteors._—Just as the moon and the sun may exert an attractive influence upon the earth and cause earthquakes to predominate at certain seasons rather than at others, several investigators of seismic phenomena have thought that the planets might act in a similar manner.