278 Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society. 
ture conditions that originate and prevail inland. Or we might 
adopt the working theory (not forgetting how easy it is to theorise 
when facts are few), which, however, is rather a geometrical 
conception than a mechanical possibility, that there is a certain 
temperature factor—if we may so call it—travelling round the earth 
from west to east, while a pressure factor is going with the sun, 
the opposite way. Upon this view the barometric depression of 
July 14th at Durban, 15th at Kimberley, 19th at Cordoba, and 21st 
at Adelaide, have a closely related origin. Whence it would follow 
that the crest showing at Kimberley about the 9th, 10th, 11th, 
appears at Cordoba about the 12th, Adelaide 14th and 10th, 
Kimberley again 18th, 19th, 20th, Cordoba 22nd, and Adelaide on 
the 26th; and that the maximum points, therefore, in the curve for 
each continent are something more than an accidental effect of mere 
wave-length. Such Mauritius observations as could be culled from 
a few (nine years) odds and ends of starveling reports scattered over 
the years 1877 to 1894, fit into this scheme admirably. They give 
a curve for July agreeing in phase, though the amplitude is much 
less, with the Adelaide curve; and also in aspect, though a day or 
two earlier in date, with the Kimberley curve. 
Upon the whole it is not unlikely that while the pressure and 
temperature waves of the three continents are demonstrably not one 
and the same thing, yet they may arise from the same impulse: 
some similar arrangement of conditions producing like effects. For 
one relief we have much thanks :—Swarms of meteors, or sunspots, 
have been, or are to be, the cause of everything. The July barometric 
and thermometric depressions, however, at any rate, are exceptions. 
Neither sunspots nor meteors have any influence over them, physical 
or occult. 
Note.—Some progress has been made in a fuller discussion of the 
minimum temperatures than is given here ; but since their treatment 
runs upon different lines it has been thought expedient to defer it 
for a separate communication later on. The hygrometric state of the 
air may not be neglected when the nocturnal cooling is under con- 
sideration, and therefore the Lee registers would be of limited utility 
in the same connection. 
