254 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1916. 



inclination required to account quantitatively for the amplitude of 

 the Kimura term is over 2 minutes of arc, or a slope of about one 

 part in fifteen hundred. Presiunably, in a few years we shall be able 

 to say something more definite as to the possibility of the existence 

 of such conditions. My own opinion is that this explanation, like 

 so many others of similar character that have been suggested for the 

 Kimura term, will be found untenable. Further, I venture to think 

 that latitude variations as a whole will find their explanations less on 

 the surface of the earth and more in its interior than seems now to 

 be the generally accepted opinion. 



