436 The Amorpholithic Monuments of Brittany. [October, 
period, lasting as it did through the several successive years 
1836, 1837, and 1838, was, however, apparently a rare con- 
sequence of an eleven-year minimum, occurring. simul- 
taneously with the minimum of a much longer cycle of 
some forty or more years, and which has not returned 
within itself since our observations began. Depending, 
therefore, chiefly on our later observed eleven-year periods, 
or from 1846°4 to 1857°8, and from the latter up to 1868°8, 
we may perhaps be justified in concluding that the minimum 
temperature of the present cold wave was reached in 1871°1; 
and the next similar cold wave will occur in 1878°8.” Be- 
tween the dates of these two cold waves there are located, 
according to all the cycles observed, even including that 
earlier one otherwise exceptional, three moderate and nearly 
equidistant heat-waves, with their two intervening and very 
moderate cold waves, but their characters are quite unim- 
portant. With regard to all the waves, it may be just to 
state that there has been in observation more uniformity, 
and will be therefore in prediction more certainty, for their 
dates than for their intensities. 
We have thus very briefly surveyed the position of me- 
teorology, and little remains to be said beyond that the 
results are highly in favour of the hopes of physicists to 
render meteorology an exact science. 
Ill. THE AMORPHOLITHIC MONUMENTS OF 
BRITTANY, 
COMPRISING THE CIRCLES, AVENUES, CARNEILLOUX, AND 
OTHER ASSEMBLAGES OF SHAPELESS STONES. 
By S. P. OLiver, Capt. R.A., F-R:G:s: 
PART II. 
We have hitherto assumed that all the megalithic 
a0) 
monuments have been constructed for sepulchral 
purposes, but an important question has been 
raised as to whether the dolmen-mounds are in any way 
associated with the circles, avenues, alignments, and other 
assemblages of upright stones found in their immediate 
neighbourhood. Is their origin coeval? and, were the lines 
constructed by the dolmen-builders, or not? Now, as to 
their contemporaneity ; the Rev. E. L. Barnwell* states 
* Rev. E. L. BARNWELL, Archeologia Cambrensis, 3rd series, vol. x., p. 57- 
