The writer proceeds to describe an instance in which Mr. Meldrum predicted future meteorological phenomena, though without specifying the exact extent to which Mr. Meldrum’s anticipations were fulfilled or the reverse. “A drought commenced in Mauritius early in November,” he says, “and Mr. Meldrum ventured (on December 21) to express publicly his opinion that probably the drought would not break up till towards the end of January, and that it might last till the middle of February, adding that up to these dates the rainfall of the island would probably not exceed 50 per cent. of the mean fall. This opinion was an inference grounded on past observations, which show that former droughts have lasted from about three to three and a half months, and that these droughts have occurred in the years of minimum sun-spots, or, at all events, in years when the spots were far below the average, such as 1842, 1843, 1855, 1856, 1864, 1866, and 1867, and that now we are near the minimum epoch of sun-spots. It was further stated that the probability of rains being brought earlier by a cyclone was but slight, seeing that the season for cyclones is not till February or March, and that no cyclone whatever visited Mauritius during 1853–56 and 1864–67, the years of minimum sun-spots. From the immense practical importance of this application of the connection between sun-spots and weather to the prediction of the character of the weather of the ensuing season, we shall look forward with the liveliest interest to a detailed statement of the weather which actually occurred in that part of the Indian Ocean from November to March last [1876].”