January 21, 1892 



NATURh 



I^een tenanted by dwarfs, or that there was any dwarf tribe in 

 the country. It is especially noteworthy that Du Bekr, the 

 confidential agent of the British Government at the Court of 

 Morocco, replied to Sir William Kirby Green that no Moor had 

 ever heard of a race of dwarfs in the country. Sir William 

 knew how to interrogate a Moor, and as he accepted Du Bekr's 

 statement, I have no doubt that Du Bekr was speaking the truth. 



Until the existence of a race of dwarfs in the Atlas Mountains 

 is proved, it is idle to indulge in guesses at the reasons which 

 have led to the fact of its existence being jealously kept secret ; 

 so I shall not follow Mr. Halliburton in the argument by which 

 he seeks to show that the race has been regarded with supersti- 

 tious reverence, and so kept apart. In all countries, at all 

 times, I believe dwarfs and deformed persons have been looked 

 at askance by the ignorant and superstitious. In Scotland they 

 were regarded as fairies of a brutal and malignant type ; and in 

 Morocco I have no doubt they have been credited with the 

 possession of the evil eye and of other pernicious powers. But 

 to maintain that a tribe of them has ever been held sacred and 

 worshipped in the heart of a Mahometan country that is fiercely 

 fanatical is to do violence to our fundamental conceptions of 

 Islam. 



Mr. Halliburton's statements about the origin hnd habits of 

 his supposed tribe of dwarfs are not more worthy of discussion 

 than his theory of the causes which have led to their conceal- 

 ment. They are derived from native sources of the most tainted 

 description, and are either pure inventions, or concoctions of 

 truth and falsehood. We are told that a tribe of acrobats — the 

 Ait Sidi Hamed O Moussa (the tribe of the son of Moses) — is 

 an offshoot of the Aglimien dwarfs, living between the Dra and 

 Akka ; that they are a rather small race with a light red com- 

 plexion ; and that dwarfs perform with them in Southern 

 Morocco, but avoid the coast towns where Europeans are ; and 

 that they are smiths and tinkers. Now, the paragraph setting 

 forth these statements contains just as much error and confusion 

 as it is possible to cram into so many words. The Sidi Hamed 

 O Moussa are not a tribe at all, but the followers of a saint 

 whose Kuba is not far from Taradant. Their troupes are made 

 up of men dr.ivvn from various parts of the country; and it 

 would be as correct to regard the Jesuits as a tribe, and describe 

 their ethnic characteristics, as it is to assign distinctive features 

 to the Sidi Hamed O Moussa. Then, as a matter of fact, they 

 are not unusually small men, they are not smiths and tinkers, 

 and they never have cKvnrfs performing with them either in town 

 or country. I saw several troupes of them in Southern Morocco, 

 andean testify that iliey are of average size and of the usual 

 Moorish tint; that ihey follow a more profitable trade than 

 that of tinkering ; anii that they have no dwarfs among them. 



Mr. Halliburton sn-ongly advises European travellers and 

 touris's to abstain from any attempt to enter the districts of 

 Morocco inhabited by the dwarfish race, as they would inevitably, 

 while doing so, be murdered or robbed, whether Moslems, Jews, 

 or Christians. The advice is judicious, for open-mouthed 

 travellers of any persuasion, in quest of dwarfs, are not unlikely 

 to be murdered or robbed in any part of Morocco except in those 

 coast towns to which Mr. Halliburton has apparently confined 

 his own wanderings in the country. European travellers of 

 another sort, however — resolute, incredulous men, explorers, and 

 pioneers of trade and commerce — will certainly before long 

 penetrate all those regions where the dwarfish race has been 

 located by Mr. Halliburton. Remembering what I have heard 

 on good authority of the resources of some of those regions, and 

 the indications I have seen of the mineral wealth of that region 

 to the south of the Atlas where Mr. Halliburton has placed the 

 original home of his dwarfs, I feel disposed to exclaim, like 

 the old sailor in Millais's famous picture "The North-West 

 Passage": "It can be done, and England ought to do it ! " 

 When, however, these regions are opened up, I feel sure that, 

 amongst much that is wonderful in them, there will be found no 

 tribe of dwarfs hemmed in by religious sentiment. 



To those interested in the generation and growth of myths in 

 modern times, and under Congress culture, Mr. Halliburton's 

 dwarf-story cannot but affjrd an instructive study. 



Harold Crichton-Browne. 



Macloustie Camp, Bechuanaland, November 15, 1891. 



Sun-spots and Air-temperature. 

 It is now widely believed by meteorologists that a certain 

 relation exists between the solar sun-spot cycle and the air-tem- 



NO. II 60, VOL. 45] 



perature of the earth, such that to a minimum of sun-spots cor- 

 responds, approximately, a maximum of air-temperature, and 

 vice versA. From the comprehensive researches of Dr. Koppen 

 on the subject some time ago, it appeared that this relation is most 

 clearly proved in the case of the tropics, the evidence becoming 

 less as we go north and south. Mr. Blanford showed recently 

 in Nature (vol. xliii. p. 583) that the evidence in the case of 

 India has of late years greatly increased in force. 



In a climate so variable as ours it is not, perhaps, to be 

 expected that the existence of such a relation should be very 

 patent and obvious. And there may be some legitimate doubt 

 whether its existence has yet been demonstrated. It is in the 

 hope of possibly advancing the matter somewhat that the fol- 

 lowing facts are presented. 



If we decide to take for our consideration a part of the year 

 instead of the whole, we shall naturally select the hotter part ; 

 the part in which the solar action is greatest (just as we might 

 expect to find, and di find, better proof of the relation in tropical 

 than in cold countries). I select the four months June to Sept- 

 ember. The data used are, Mr. Belleville's observations of 

 Greenwich mean temperature from 1812-1855, which are, it 

 should be noted, '.reduced to sea-level (see Quaift, journ. of the R. 

 Met. Soc, January 1888, p. 27), and thereafter the ordinary 

 Greenwich figures. The average difference (about half a degree) 

 does not materially affect the purpose here set. 



Taking the mean temperature of those four months, and 

 smoothing the values by means of five-year averages, we get the 

 second, thick line cuive in the upper diagram herewith. The 

 dotted line "curve is that of sun-spots, inverted {i.e. minima 

 above and maxima below). The vertical scales for these are 

 both to the left. 



There is evidently a correspondence between these curves as 

 far as about 1870 ; maxima of temperature lagging a little, as a 

 rule, behind minima of sun-spots, and minima of temperature 

 behind maxima of sunspots. Since about 1870, the correspond- 

 ence appears to fail. We look for a temperature-maximum 

 about 1879, and we do not find it. 



A consideration of the rainfall here seems instructive. The 

 smoothed curve of rainfall in those four months (third in the 

 diagram ; Chiswick to 1869, thereafter Greenwich) is, in 

 the main, roughly inverse to the temperature-curve, as we 

 might expect. Yet it is difficult to trace a very definite re- 

 lation between it and the sun-spot curve. Thus, consider 

 the three most salient "crests" in it. The first (in height 

 as well as time), in 1829, is close before a sunspot niaximtcm, 

 1830. The second (least salient of the three), in 1861, is close 

 afier a sunspot maximum, i860. The third, in 1879 and 1880, 

 is close after a sunspot minimum, 1878. These rainfall varia- 

 tions, indeed, seem to be under some different law, and it will 

 be observed that the last crest comes (the first example in the 

 whole period) just about wheie we should expect, from previous 

 experience, to find a temperature-maximum. The regular 

 variation of this curve in one direction for several years is a 

 noteworthy feature recently (in 1880 to 1885, and again in 1885 

 to 1889). Is the curve now near a maximum which will t e 

 found to coincide with a further obliteration of the normal 

 correspondence between sun-spots and temperature? 



We have thus far considered the group of four months, and 

 they seem to me to support the view underconsideration. May 

 we further look for the relation in individual months? 



Suppose we see reason in doing so, and make a selection. 

 The most likely month would perhaps seem to be July, as 

 having the maximum temperature ; or June, as that month in 

 which the sun is highest. 



On examining the smoothed curves of mean temperature for 

 each of those four months, we find that June and September 

 show a large amount of the correspondence with the sun-spot 

 curve, while the two others do not show much correspondence. 

 These two curves (June and September) are given in the lower 

 diagram, superposed ; the two vertical scales being at the left. 

 June, it will be noticed, presents a wave crest fairly correspond- 

 ing with each of the six, or seven, sun-spot minima. In the case 

 of September there is a pronounced failure at the sun-spot 

 minimum in 1878. 



As a possibly good reason why September might show the 

 relation, while July and August do not (or not so well), I would 

 suggest the fact that September is the month with least cloud. 

 Between May and September, cloud increases to a small 

 secondary maximum in July. 



The absence of a maximum of temperature in September 



