Rainfall and atmospheric pressure in India have been found to vary in a cyclic manner, of late years at any rate, the periods being generally about 10 or 11 years. The activity of the sun, as shown by the existence of many spots, apparently makes more rainfall at Madras, Najpore, and some other places; while at Calcutta, Bombay, Mysore, and elsewhere it produces a contrary effect. Yet these effects are produced in a somewhat capricious way: for sometimes the year of actual _maximum_ spot frequency is one in which rainfall is below the average (instead of above) at the former stations, and above the average (instead of below) at the latter. It is only by taking averages--and in a somewhat artificial manner--that the relation seems to be indicated on which stress has been laid. Since Indian famines are directly dependent on defective rainfall, it is natural that during the years over which observation has hitherto extended the connection apparently existing between sun-spots and Indian rainfall should seem also to extend itself to Indian famines. It was equally to be expected that since cyclones have been rather more numerous, for some time past, in years when sun-spots have been most numerous, shipwrecks should also have been somewhat more frequent in such years. Two years ago Mr. Jeula gave some evidence which, in his opinion, indicated such a connection between sun-spots and shipwrecks. He showed that in the four years of fewest spots the mean percentage of losses was 8.64; in four intermediate years the mean percentage was 9.21; in three remaining years of the eleven-year cycle--that is, in three years of greatest spot frequency the mean percentage was 9.53. Some suggested that possibly such events as the American war, which included two of the three years of greatest spot frequency, may have had more effect than sun-spots in increasing the percentage of ships lost; while perhaps, the depression following the commercial panic of 1866 (at a time of fewest sun-spots) may have been almost as effective in reducing the percentage of losses as the diminished area of solar maculation. But others consider that we ought rather to regard the American war as yet another product of the sun's increased activity in 1860-61, and the great commercial panic of 1866 as directly resulting from diminished sun-spots at that time, thus obtaining fresh evidence of the sun's specific influence on terrestrial phenomena instead of explaining away the evidence derived from Lloyd's list of losses.