Of what use can it be to know, for instance, that the three years of least solar maculation will probably give a rainfall less than that for the preceding or following three years, if the middle year of the three, when the spots are most numerous of all, _may_ haply show plenteous rainfall? Or it may be the first of the three, or the last, which is thus well supplied, while a defect in the other two, or in one of the others, brings the total triennial rainfall below the average. What provision could possibly be made under such circumstances to meet a contingency which may occur in any one of three years? or, at least, what provision could be made which would prove nearly so effective as an arrangement which could readily be made for keeping sufficient Government stores at suitable stations (that is, never allowing such stores to fall at the critical season in each year below a certain minimum), and sending early telegraphic information of unfavourable weather? Does any one suppose that the solar rice-grains are better worth watching for such a purpose than the terrestrial rice-grains, or that it is not well within the resources of modern science and modern means of communication and transport, to make sufficient preparation each year for a calamity always possible in India? And be it noticed that if, on the one hand, believers in solar safety from famine may urge that, in thus objecting to their scheme, I am opposing what might, in some year of great famine and small sun-spots, save the lives of a greater number than would be saved by any system of terrestrial watchfulness, I would point out, on the other, that the solar scheme, if it means anything at all, means special watchfulness at the minimum sun-spot season, and general confidence (so far as famine is concerned) at the season of maximum solar maculation; and that while as yet nothing has been really proved about the connection between sun-spots and famine, such confidence might prove to be a very dangerous mistake.