November 20, 1902] 



NA TURE 



61 



Mediterranean tribes which caused the piratical onslaughts 

 on Egypt in the thirteenth and twelfth centuries B.C., in 

 which Cretan wanderers, expelled from their island by 

 the northern newcomers, may well have taken part. It 

 is certain that before this time the highly civilised 

 Minoan Cretans or Keftiu had disappeared from the 

 ken of the Egyptians, and are no more seen in Egyptian 

 wall-paintings. One result of this convulsion seems to 

 have been the settlement of a Cretan tribe, the Philis- 

 tines, on the coast of Palestine. 



When Crete emerges from the dark age which fol- 

 lowed the break-up of the Minoan power, we find it a 

 congeries of Greek city-states of the usual type, but of a 

 more quarrelsome disposition than elsewhere ; in the 

 Minoan land itself, Gortyna conquers and destroys 

 Knossos and Phaistos, in the east Hierapytna wages long 

 wars with Praisos and Itanos, and so forth. Crete takes 

 no part in the colonising activity of the new Greece, and 

 is henceforth of no account in Hellas. Her day of glory 

 had passed away with the Heroic age. 



I am indebted to Mr. R. C. Bosanquet for inform- 

 ation with regard to the work of the British School at 

 Athens in eastern Crete. Subscriptions for this work 

 will be gladly received by Mr. Walter Leaf, 6 Sussex 

 Place, Regent's Park, N.W. 



H. R. Hall. 



P. S.— Photographs of the remains at Hyrtakina have 

 been published by Messrs. Savignoni and De Sanctis in 

 their publication " Esplorazione Archeologica delle 

 Provincie Occidentali di Creta" (Rome, 1901). From 

 their publication it would appear that Phalasarna. the most 

 westerly site in the island, was certainly of Mycenaean 

 origin. Near the remains of a city is a colossal stone 

 throne, of the same type as those treated of by the late 

 Dr. Reichel in his " Vorhellenische Gotterkulte," on 

 which is a relief of a symbolic pillar (see Evans, "My- 

 cenaean Tree and Pillar-Cults," in the Journal of Hellenic 

 Studies, vol. xxi. p. 99 ff. ; reviewed in Nature, 

 November 14, 1901, Suppl.). The name Phalasarna is 

 of the now easily recognisable " kleinasiatisch " pras- 

 Hellenic type. Kretschmer has pointed out that the 

 last two syllables may well be the same as the name of 

 the Bceotian Arne, which he has identified with the 

 Lycian word arnna, "city" ("Einleitung in die Ges- 

 chichte der griechischen Sprache," p. 406). There seem 

 to be Mycensean traces also at Vlithias and at Agia 

 Irene (Kantanos ?) ; see Savignoni and De Sanctis, loc. 

 Ctt., for photographs of polygonal masonry, &c. 



Mr. Bosanquet informs me that he has found 

 Mycenaean pottery-fragments on the small island of 

 Mdkhlos (wrongly called Hagios Nikdlaos in Kiepert's 

 map of 1897), oft the north coast between Kavousi and 

 Sitia. 



THE SECOND INSTALMENT OF THE BEN 



NE VIS O BSER VA TIONS. l 

 "THE forty-second volume of the Transactions of the 

 ■^ Royal Society of Edinburgh is devoted to the 

 publication of five years' observations at the Ben 

 Nevis Observatories, in continuation of those in- 

 cluded in vol. xxxiv. of the same series of Trans- 

 actions published in 1890, with appendices consist- 

 ing of discussions of the results. It is edited by 

 Dr. Buchan, the meteorological secretary to the directors 

 of the observatories, and Mr. R. T. Omond, honorary 

 superintendent of the observatories. The cost of printing 

 is borne by the Royal Societies of London and Edinburgh. 

 The observations include hourly readings and summaries 



1 "The Meteorology of the Ben Nevis Observatories." Part ii., containing 

 the Observations for the Years 1888, t38o, 1890, 1891 and 1892, with Ap- 

 pendices. Edited by Alexander Buchan, LL. L). , K. R.S , and Robert Trail 

 Omond. 



NO. 1725, VOL. 67] 



of the meteorological elements, together with entries in 

 the log-book at the summit station for the five years 

 188S-1892, and readings, five times daily, at the public 

 school, Fort William, from January, 1888, to December, 

 1890; also the hourly readings with various summaries 

 for the Fort William Observatory from the establishment 

 of that institution in the autumn of 1900. There have 

 also been added tables of mean hourly values of the 

 barometer, temperature, &c, at Ben Nevis and Fort 

 William Observatories, computed to the end of 1896, with 

 mean monthly temperatures deduced from independent 

 observations in the Stevenson screen at Fort William for 

 the period August I, 1890, to December 31, 1896, and 

 differences between the observations in the Stevenson 

 screen and the thermograph screen of the Observatory 

 It is almost needless to say that the publication of these 

 tables will be welcomed as representing the primary 

 results of an enormous amount of patient and pains- 

 taking labour, controlled by a representative board of 

 directors of conspicuous distinction and carried out by 

 a body of enthusiastic observers in circumstances of no 

 little difficulty. 



This is not a suitable occasion for dealing independently 

 with the observations, which are presented with the skill 

 and care of which Dr. Buchan is an acknowledged 

 master, and with all the assistance an accomplished 

 printer can afford. We naturally turn to the appendices 

 as representing the scientific results which have been 

 obtained by those who have been associated with the 

 working of the observatories and have devoted time 

 and study to the many problems which the observations 

 suggest. 



The appendices consist of a series of papers, some ot 

 them in extenso and appearing now for the first time, 

 others in abstract or reproduced from the publications of 

 the Royal Society of Edinburgh or the Scottish Meteor- 

 ological Society by Dr. Buchan, Mr. Aitken, Mr. 

 Buchanan, Mr. Omond, Mr. Mossman and Mr. Rankin. 



A brief survey of these discussions is sufficient to show 

 that the problems suggested by the meteorology of Ben 

 Nevis, taken separately or in comparison with that of 

 Fort William, are many and difficult. Dr. Buchan returns 

 to a voluminous but still unexhausted subject in a paper 

 on the diurnal range of the barometer in fine and cloudy 

 weather at stations in various latitudes, from San Jose", 

 Costa Rica, to Jan Mayen in the North Atlantic. Mr. 

 Aitken's report on atmospheric dust and Mr. Buchanan's 

 discussion of the meteorology of a station- in the clouds, 

 as represented by the Ben Nevis records in foggy weather, 

 are already well known contributions to science. The 

 other papers are, as a rule, of less general scope. 



Much attention is devoted to the relation of barometric 

 readings at the summit to those at the base station, and here 

 one of the difficulties of Ben Nevis observations becomes 

 very conspicuous. When the velocity of wind reaches or 

 exceeds twenty miles per hour, the barometer reading at 

 the summit no longer represents the pressure of the air 

 within 001 inch. All barometric readings with anything 

 more than a moderate wind are subject to a correction of 

 uncertain amount on account of dynamical disturbance. 

 Moreover, the shape of the mountain, with its great cliff 

 on one side of the summit, has a very marked effect upon 

 the wind measures. This circumstance reminds me of a 

 personal experience at Dover during a gale, when the 

 only place in Dover screened from the wind was the top 

 walk of the Admiralty pier, apparently as fully exposed to 

 the gale as any position could be. Such dynamical effects 

 upon barometer and wind make it very difficult to bring 

 the summit observations of these primary meteorological 

 factors into relation with corresponding observations 

 elsewhere. 



These are not the only difficulties associated with the 

 reduction of the summit barometer readings to sea level, 

 and the account of the attempts to carry out this reduction 



