84 



NATURE 



[November 28, 1907 



the watching during the night — it was all night work 

 if in the term night we include the dawn — could be 

 done in the shelter itself, and this could be managed 

 if the entrance to it was aligned on the part of the 

 horizon to be chiefly watched. 



Now what were those points? The circles supply 

 the information. They were chiefly, as the May-year 

 was then paramount, the sunrise place in May and 

 August, when the sun's declination is i6° 20' N., and 

 that in November and February, when the sun's de- 

 clination is 16° 20' S., these two sunrise places mark- 

 ing off the quarters of the year and the chief fes- 

 tivals. Next came the rising place of the clock-star, 

 and later the place of sunrise on the longest and 

 shortest days — the solstices. 



The question to be settled, then, is. Do the en- 

 trances to the cromlechs point in these directions? 

 Could the priests have done their night work under 

 shelter? 



Some of the data used in the attempt to answer this 

 question I have obtained myself from the monuments; 

 in other cases I have endeavoured to get the required 

 information from the so-called plans or surveys to be 

 found in archaeological records. The great majority 

 of these, however, I have found to be utterly useless 

 for my purpose. A brilliant exception, however, is 

 found in the carefully oriented work of Lukis on the 

 Cornish monuments, so I will begin with Cornwall 

 and the Mav-vear sunrises. 



The following table gives the theoretical values of 

 the azimuths of the sunrise places. It has been pre- 

 viouslv shown in my book, " Stonehenge," that the 

 circles conform to them. 



Comxvall. Lat. 50°. 



Following this table I give another, showing the 

 azimuths of most of the chief Cornish cromlechs. 

 Orientation of Cornish Cromlechs. 



NO, 1987, VOL. ']'j'\ 



We see, then, that many of the chief Cornish 

 cromlechs are aligned on the May and August or the 

 November and F'ebruary sunrises as carefully as are 

 the outstanding stones connected with the associated 

 circles. 



The true azimuths have been determined from 

 magnetic observations made by Lukis and myself by 

 subtracting 20° 30', the west variation in Lukis's time, 

 and 18° at the present in the case of my own observ- 

 ations ; it will be seen that they agree closely with 

 the theoretical values given above. 



The above list, however, does not exhaust all the 

 cromlechs in Lukis's work perfect enough to allow of 

 their orientation to be determined. We have : — 



Tregiffian 



Barrow near 

 Tregaseal cir- 

 cles 



Azimuths (true) 



Lukis, plate XV , N. 52 E. 



Lukis, plate xvii, reproducing V c en F 

 Trounson / ' ■' 



These are solstitial alignments. The variation of 

 1° or 2° in this and the preceding table no doubt 

 arises from the fact that the height of the horizon 

 varies from place to place, and no information on 

 this head is given by Lukis. 



NORM.NN LOCKYER. 



THE PRESERVATION OF EGGS. 



FEW people not directly connected with the trade 

 have any adequate idea of the extent to which 

 the egg of the domestic fowl is imported into this 

 country. Whether the volume of this trade ought to 

 be an unmixed source of satisfaction to us is another 

 question, for there can be little doubt that if some of 

 the energy, enterprise, and organising power which 

 have been turned to such excellent account in Den- 

 mark, for example, were applied to the production of 

 eggs in this country, we should be less dependent 

 than we are on foreign supplies. Intimately bound 

 up with this question of c^g production is that of their 

 pieservation, but although much has been written on 

 the value of particular methods, no systematic inves- 

 tigation of the conditions under which eggs must be 

 kept to maintain and ensure their quality as food has 

 hitherto been attempted, nor has any proper com- 

 parison been made as to the relative merits of the 

 various methods which are practised. Those who are 

 interested in this important subject will therefore wel- 

 come the appearance of a paper by Mr. Fr. Prall in a 

 recent number of the Zeitschrift fiir Unterstichting 

 dcr Nahnings- und Genussmittel (No. 7, vol. xiv., 

 October i, 1907, p. 445). in which the question is 

 treated both observatlonally and experimentally with 

 all the precision and care which should characterise a 

 scientific inquiry. 



The adequate solution of this problem demands that 

 th'T eggs when preserved shall maintain their normal 

 appearance, smell and taste; in other words, they 

 must in nowise differ in chemical and physical char- 

 acters, or in behaviour on cooking, from fresh eggs. 

 The chemical and physical changes to which eggs are 

 naturally subject are largely dependent on the tem- 

 perature and relative humidity of the air, and on the 

 presence in it of moulds and germs. In an abso- 

 lutely sterile atmosphere at a sufficiently low tem- 

 perature and of a proper degree of humidity, eggs 

 will preserve their " freshness " for very long periods 

 of time, if not indefinitely; and all successful methods 

 of keeping eggs imply a practical recognition of these 

 conditions. 



Of the various methods of distinguishing old and 



