Jan. 22, 1880] 



NATURE 



281 



Typ e > long, oval face, arched nose, head mesaticephalous, 

 that is, intermediate between the round and the long, 

 measured horizontally, with cranial index 79 ; J fair com- 

 plexion, thick beard,' hair and eyes generally black, but 

 light blue or grey eyes and brown hair common amongst 

 the Rohillas, 2 as the Suleiman highlanders are often col- 

 lectively called. , . 

 The great bulk of the people are Sunnites, which is 

 one of the causes of their profound aversion to the 

 Persians, who are mainly of the Shiah sect. Yet the 

 nobles and upper classes, especially amongst the Duranis, 

 usually converse and always correspond in Persian. The 

 consequence is that the Pukhtu, or national language, has 

 remained a somewhat rude idiom, seldom employed in 

 literature, and in refined society regarded as little better 

 than a provincial patois. Its importance philologically is 

 considerable, for though usually grouped with the Iranian 

 branch of the Aryan family, Dr. Ernest Trumpp (Gram- 

 mar, 1873), gives it a more independent position as inter- 

 mediate between the Iranic and Indie, while Prof. Haug, 

 of Munich, now regards it as a separate member of the 

 family. It is very harsh and spoken with considerable 

 dialectic variety everywhere in Afghanistan proper except 

 the Hazarajat, and also in the Peshawar district of British 

 India. The most marked dialects seem to be the Kanda- 

 hari, Dir, Tirhai, Peshawari, Khaibari, Tarni, Vaziri, and 

 Ushtarani. The Pashae and Laghmani, sometimes in- 

 cluded in the list, are not Pukhtu at all, or even Iranian, 

 but distinctly Sanskritic, closely allied to the Siah Posh 

 and Kohistani. A H. Keane 



THE METEOROLOGY OF SOUTH 

 AUSTRALIA" 



MR. CHARLES TODD sends us a well-written and 

 eminently practical paper on the rainfall of 

 Adelaide during 1878, illustrated with a map showing the 

 positions of the 1 1 5 stations for the observation of the 

 rainfall of that part of Australia and their rainfall for the 

 year. Along with the monthly rainfall for 1878 there are 

 printed the monthly means of forty-three of the stations 

 at which the rainfall has been recorded for at least eight 

 years. Since these stations extend right across the con- 

 tinent from Palmerston in the north to Cape Northum- 

 berland in the south, we are now, through this boldly 

 designed system of observation, obtaining just notions of 

 the agricultural and pastoral capabilities of the colony, in 

 so far as these depend on that prime factor of climate, the 

 rainfall. 



The rainfall of South Australia depends, on the one 

 hand, on the tropical rains, which extend from the north 

 coast inland, and prevail from November to April ; and 

 on the other hand on the winter rains, which extend from 

 the south coast northwards into the interior, and prevail 

 for the seven months ending with October. 



The tropical rains extend in a greater or less degree 

 across the interior, as far as lat. 26 S., falling off very 

 considerably, however, south of Daly Waters, in lat. 16 

 15'. The breadth over which these rains spread south- 

 wards and their copiousness depend altogether on the 

 strength and southerly dip of the north-west monsoon, 

 and consequently in the years when this monsoon blows 

 over Australia with diminished force, a large tract of 

 territory becomes nothing but an arid waste. 



A different state of things, however, prevails along the 

 north coast and for a few hundred miles inland. There 

 the summer rains fail not. At Palmerston, for example, 

 the average of the past nine years gives a monthly fall 



whence also Rohilcund. in 



1 Barnard Davis, "Thesaurus Ci 



3 From rok = the Persian ko h 

 Northern India. 



3 "Meteorological Observations made at Adelaide Observatory during 

 1876-77-78," under the direction of Chatles Todd, CMC. F.R.A.S. 

 " Rainfall of South Australia during 1S78 " (with map), by Charles Todd, 

 C.M.G., F.R.A.S. Adelaide, 1879. 



for each of the four months, from December to March, 

 of 12-38 inches; in April, October, and November, the 

 month! v mean is 368 inches ; in May and September it 

 is small, and in June, July, and August no rain falls. 

 Here, then, is a large region, doubtless with a great 

 future before it as regards the supply of the markets of 

 the world with fruits and other tropical produce, such as 

 have long been shipped from the rich plains of India and 

 Ceylon. 



The winter rains occasionally extend well up into the 

 interior, sometimes passing the centre of the continent ; 

 but generally thev thin off about 100 miles north of 

 Spencer's Gulf, and are heavy north of this gulf only 

 along the Flinder's range of mountains. The area of 

 minimum rainfall of the continent extends from the Gre'at 

 Australian Bight to the northern extremity of the Flinder's 

 Range, over the plains to the east of this range up to 

 latitude 25 , and spreads either way to within perhaps a 

 few hundred miles of the east and west coasts. 



The agricultural districts of South Australia are marked 

 off by the method of distribution of these winter rains ; and 

 roughly speaking, they lie for some distance northwards 

 along and in the immediate vicinity of the Flinder's 

 Range, and thence southwards along the coast to Cape 

 Northumberland. This broadish strip of territory con- 

 stitutes, then, the granary of the colony ; and looking at 

 Mr. Todd's rain returns in connection with the broad 

 physical features of the region, it is likely always to 

 remain so. 



The close connection between the average quantity 

 of wheat reaped per acre and the rainfall is shown in a 

 table, giving for each year beginning with 1861 the yield 

 per acre and the monthly rainfalls deduced from the 

 observations of rain made over the agricultural districts 

 during these eighteen years. In 1878 the rainfall over the 

 agricultural districts was nearly 3 inches under the average, 

 and the yield of wheat was only 7 bushels 9 lbs., or nearly 

 three bushels under the average. Still more instructive 

 would the comparison be if, instead of lumping the districts 

 together, their average rainfall and average yield of wheat 

 were presented in a separate form. 



The Meteorological Observations made at Adelaide 

 Observatory, published monthly, show also the rainfall at 

 all the rain stations with remarks, the appearance of 

 which cannot but be watched with the liveliest interest by 

 the Colonists. Thus in January, 1S76, it is noted that 

 the monsoon scarcely reached the MacDonnell Ranges, 

 south of which, and as far as the east coast, drought 

 prevailed • and in the following month the information is 

 criven that although 10 inches of rain fell at Port Darwin, 

 the monsoon rains were comparatively light and barely 

 reached the centre of the continent. 



The observations at the Adelaide Observatory are 

 made, printed, and discussed with extremely satisfactory 

 fulness for an observatory not furnished with continu- 

 ously recording instruments. Of special value are the 

 comparisons made of each month's observations with the 

 means of these months from past observations. The 

 sorting of the wind observations into the directions for 

 each hour of observation, viz., 6 and 9 A.M., noon, 3, .6, 

 and 9 P M., give most interesting results. These show for 

 the summer months a shifting of the wind from a south- 

 easterly direction in the morning to a south-westerly 

 direction in the afternoon, a result doubtless due to the 

 situation of Adelaide with reference to the heated inte- 

 rior of the continent, as that heating varies during the 

 twenty-four hours. . 



The weak point of this system of meteorological obser- 

 vation is the total absence of barometrical and therrno- 

 metrical observations at all the stations except Adelaide. 

 Such observations were made at some half dozen stations 

 during 1861-64, but since then we miss them from trie 

 reports. It would not be possible to exaggerate the 

 importance, not only to the colonists themselves, but to 



