AUGUST 15, 1912] 
NATURE 
619 
day readings, for the week ending August 12. 
Haparanda is now found to have by far the highest 
mean, being 8o0'0°; the next highest is Nice with 
77°6°, followed by 758° at Lisbon, 73'5° at Bodo, 
680° at Biarritz, 66°3° at Paris, 656° at Brussels, 
633° in London, 62°9” at Jersey, and 60'0° at Liver- 
pool, the latter being for the whole week 20° lower 
than Haparanda. The most marked difference prob- 
ably occurred on August 10, when at Haparanda the 
maximum temperature was 86° and at Bodé 70°, 
whilst at Nice it was only 75°, Lisbon 73°, no other 
representative station having a temperature as high 
as 70°, and at Jersey and in London the highest mid- 
day reading was 63°, and at Liverpool 59°. 
The summary of the weather for the first ten weeks 
of the summer, issued by the Meteorological Office, 
shows an excess of rain over the entire kingdom, 
except in the north of Scotland, where the deficiency 
only amounts to 01 in. The excess is greatest in the 
south-west of England, where it amounts to 5°26 in., 
the aggregate measurement being 31135 in. In the 
‘south of Ireland the excess is 5°01 in., and in the 
Channel Islands, the north-east of England, and in 
the Midland counties it exceeds 4 in. The number of 
rainy days is also generally largely in excess of the 
average. The duration of bright sunshine so far 
this summer is everywhere largely deficient, especi- 
ally in the eastern districts; in the east of Scotland 
the duration of sunshine is only 
normal. 
ADVANCE OF THE SOUTH-WEST MON- 
SOON OF i912 OVER INDIA. 
N an interesting article in The Popular Science 
Monthly (vol. Ixxviii.) on “The Meteorology of 
the Future,’’ Prof. Cleveland Abbe stated that: ‘‘In 
India the prediction of great droughts has long been 
held to be one of the most important questions that 
can be attacked by the weather bureau of that coun- 
try, and eminent men have worked upon it for twenty 
years past.’ The failure of the monsoon rains and 
the consequent failure of crops will cause famine 
over very extensive districts, while a timely and suc- 
cessful forecast, or ‘‘inference,’’ of the probable rain- 
fall during -the season in question (June to early 
October) may effect an immense saving to the Govern- 
ment. 
The Director-General of Observatories, in a 
*“Memorandum on the meteorological conditions pre- 
vailing before the advance of the south-west mon- 
soon,’ dated June 8, again points out that the mon- 
soon rainfall is affected by previous conditions over 
various parts of the earth, and he has elsewhere 
explained that there is a relation of an inverse char- 
acter between barometric pressure in South America 
and in the Indian Ocean, the barometer being usually 
higher than the average in one region when lower 
in the other, and abundant monsoon rainfall is, as a 
rule, preceded by high pressure in South America and 
low pressure in the Indian Ocean. 
The memorandum contains a list of recent data 
which appear to be of importance, and of the infer- 
ences drawn therefrom. It is admitted that there is 
a large uncertainty in the present methods of fore- 
casting, and that it is only when the indications are 
strongly marked that reliance can be placed on 
them. In the present year such _ conditions 
do not obtain, but a careful consideration of 
the various features has nevertheless led to the fol- 
lowing conclusions being drawn :—(1) It appears 
likely that monsoon rainfall, which is already overdue 
on the Konkan coast (Bombay) will be materially 
later than usual in establishing itself over the country. 
NO. 2233, VOL. 89| 
‘ 
one-half of the 
_ (2) The rainfall of the first half of the period is likely 
to be less abundant and less steady than usual, par- 
ticularly in north-west India. (3) There appears to 
be no reason for anticipating that the total monsoon 
rainfall of India as a whole will be in large excess 
or large defect. (4) An unusual amount of irregularity 
in the distribution of rainfall appears likely. 
PREHISTORIC TIME MEASUREMENT IN 
BRITAIN. 
HE current volume of Transactions of the North 
Staffordshire Field Club contains a paper by Dr. 
McAldowie on prehistoric time measurement. It is 
based on two years’ astronomical study of megalithic 
monuments which have beén uncovered in long bar- 
rows in Staffordshire and Gloucestershire. It treats 
first of the orientation of these to sunset at the equi- 
noxes and solstices, and at the early part of November 
and February, and of May and August, the former 
being the astronomical, the latter the religious, or 
agricultural, year of prehistoric times. The chief 
object of the communication, however, is to direct 
Fic. 1. —Twelve o'clock in November and February marked on the south- 
east end ot the leauing ston=. 
attention to the shadows cast by these stones on these 
various dates. 
At the south-east corner of the chamber in the 
Bridestones, in North Staffordshire, which is oriented 
to sunrise at the equinoxes, the shadow of a tall up- 
right strikes the edge of a recumbent stone at its 
base when the sun is on the meridian at the summer 
solstice. At Notgrove, on the Cotteswolds, there is a 
similar arrangement of megaliths in the middle of a 
long barrow, the chamber being oriented to the 
November sunrise. The meridional shadows strike 
the south and the north edges of the dial stone 
respectively at the equinoxes and the beginning of 
November. 
The chief portion of the paper deals with a dolmen 
situated in a long barrow at Camp, near the author’s 
residence, where he had spent many days at all 
seasons of the year. This dolmen is composed of a 
north, a south, an east, and a west stone, all firmly 
embedded in the solid rock, and occupying a some- 
what quadrilateral space. A leaning-stone crosses 
near the middle of this space in a diagonal manner, 
forming, by its union with the east stone, a sacred 
‘““creep-way.”’ The dolmen marks the solstices and 
