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Carried further back, the correspondence breaks down at several places. The "Rich Man's Panic" of 1903-04 and the brief depression of 1913-14, for example, do not fit into the picture. Yet Dr. Stetson argues that four out of the last five major slumps have followed "in the wake" of sunspot maxima. He mentions two sunspot investigators who failed to find any connection between unusual sunspot activity and abundant crops, but reflected that bumper crops do not always accompany industrial prosperity. Their prosperity curves did not fit well with ordinary sunspot graphs, either, but when they made a graph showing the up-and-down deviations from average activity, between 1876 and 1930. it matched a curve showing the volume of manufactures very nicely.
Unlike astrologers and experimenters in telepathy and clairvoyance, Astronomer Stetson traces a possible channel through which his supposed influences may reach their human objects. The ultraviolet radiation increase due to sunspots produces more Vitamin D in the skin. It may also produce more vitamins in plants which men eat. Increased vitamin intake may, through the endocrine glands, affect emotions and moods. Therefore, "since the composite curve of business activity is fundamentally a curve of mass psychology," sunspots may affect business activity.
Another way in which human physiology and psychology may be affected by sunspots is by means of ions. These are 'electrified particles in the air, created mostly by ultraviolet radiation. A German scientist at Frankfort carried out experiments which convinced him that an excess of positively charged ions in the air causes fatigue, dizziness and headache; that an excess of negatively charged ions induces exhilaration. Confirming results were obtained by Professor Constantin Yaglou of the Harvard School of Public Health.
Human nerves are still another possible avenue of sunspot influence. Sunspots cause "storms" in the earth's magnetic field. Magnetic fields affect electric currents. Electric currents are the mode by which nerve impulses are carried in the body.
Dr. Stetson admits that these chains of cause & effect are long and dubiously linked, and that the effort to match sunspot curves with indices of human activity —without taking into consideration hundreds of other factors—must necessarily be far from conclusive. But he feels that the evidence for sunspot influence is too good and too stimulating to be thrown out of court. "Definite investigations," he concludes, "should ultimately make it possible to substantiate or amend these statements. Some of them doubtless will be amended. I cannot but believe that accumulating evidence will show many of them valid. Ratification rests in the hands of science."
*Whittlesey House ($8).
*Dr. Stetson's book does not take account of the recent stockmarket and business slump. He pointed out last week, however, that sunspots diminished after Aug. 1 (two weeks before the market break) and did not resume their upclimb until last fortnight. He expects the current sunspot increase to continue for another year.