Aug. 1, 1901.1 KIE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
121 
form of permanent cnUivation on lan3s to be planted 
with this product. I doubt whether the results would 
in any case be commensurate with the outlay involved. 
Chinese who understand the cultivsfion of tapioca do 
not necessarily understand the. planting of coconuts 
or rubber, and are consequently loth to undertake 
such cultivation. 
OocoNTJTS. — I am glad to say that the cultivation 
of coconuts has received much attention and many 
new plantations have been started, more especially 
in the Coast district, which is the most suited to 
them. Coconut planters, like other agriculturists, 
have their troubles. In new plantations wild pig 
do enormous damage by rooting up and eating the 
seed coconuts, Nothing seems to be quite eff-sctive 
against their ravages, although both barbed wire 
fencing and deep ditches have been tried. Again, 
when the trees have grown, the boring beetles 
(Oryctes rhinoceros and Bli^nchophorus ferrugineus), by 
eating the heart of the trees, kill targe numbers. 
A special enactment has been provided to compel 
owners of trees to keep them clean and free from 
the larva* of these beetles. The provisions of this 
enactment were carefully enforced by the Forest 
Officer and Inspector. The District Officers write 
in faTourable terms of the work done l»y the Inspec- 
tor, who visited upwards of three thousand gardens 
during the year. 
THE NEW GRAFFE-LIKE ANIMAL. 
SKIN AND TWO SKULLS RECEIVED IN LONDON. 
Prof. Ray Lankester has now received the case, 
shipped at Mombassa on April 19tli, containingthe 
skin and two skulls of the remarkable new girafi'e- 
like animal obtained from the Semliki forest by 
Sir Harry Johnston, and sent by him for preserva- 
tion in the Natural History Department of the 
British Museum. Writinfj to tlie Times with re- 
ference to the specimens, Prof. Lankester says :— 
" The animal is a giratfe-Uke creature devoid of 
horns, with relatively short neck and with colour 
stripes on the limbs, but nowhere showing spots or 
areolae like those of the giraffe. Sir Harry John- 
ston was amply justified in assimilating the 
animal to the extinct Helladotherium, but after 
an examination of the skulls I am of opinion that 
the 'Okapi ' (the native name by which the new 
animal is known) cannot be referred to the genus 
ot the Helladotherium, but must be placed in a 
uew genus. I must say that, although the horny 
hoofs are not present, yet the double bony supports 
of the hoofs are preserved with the skin, and leave 
no doubt, even without reference to the accom- 
panying skulls, that the animal which bore the 
skin was not a hor.se-like creature, but one with 
cloven hoofs." — Nature, June 20. 
A LONG PERIOD SUNSFOT VARIATION.^ 
It has long been known, and Dr. Rudolf Wol^ 
of Zurich was the first to draw attention to it, 
that the length of a sunspot period is only in the 
meaTi eleven years, and that the real length of any 
one period might differ from this value by as much 
as ± two years. Another fact ot observation is 
that the times of maxima do not occur a constant 
number of years after a preceding minimum, and 
Dr. Wolf determined the mean interval as 4'5 
years. The minimum also follow.? the maximum 
jn a mean interval of 6'5 years 
* Extracts from a paper, The Solar Activity 
. 1B33-1900," read before the Royal Society on May 
23rd, by Dr. William J. S. Lockyer. 
It has further been noticed that the intensity 
of each period, i.e. ilie total amount of spotted area, 
included between one minimum and the next, was 
not eor.stant, Dr. Wolf held that these quantitie.s 
indicated a certain periodicity, and at first sug- 
gested a period of 178 years, and later 5.5 '5 years, 
or a period extending over five eleven-year periods 
(11-1 x5=55-5). 
The present investigation was limited to the 
interval of time, namely, 1833-19U0, over which 
systematic observations of the sun's surface have 
been regularly made, and, as Dr. Wolfs relative 
numbers agree well with the actual facts of obser- 
vation over this period, these numbers have^been 
employed. 
Since then, in addition to the well-known eleven- 
year period of sunspot frequency, there is another 
cycle which extends over about thirty-live years, 
and which is indicated clearly, as has been shown, 
both by the changes in the times of the occurrence 
of the epochs of maxima and in the variations in 
area included in consecutive eleven-year periods ot 
both sunspot and magnetic curves, it is only 
natural to suppose that this long-period variation 
is the effect of a cycle of disturbances in the sun's 
atmosphere itself. 
Such a cycle, if of sufficient intensity, should 
cause a variatiou from the normal circulation of 
the earth's atmosphere, and should be indicated in 
all meteorological and like phenomena. 
We are indebted to Prof. Ed. Bruckner for the 
great work on the changes in climates, and in this 
investigation he sought variations in the observa- 
tions of the height of the waters in inland seas, 
lakes, and rivers ; in the observations of rainfall, 
pressure, and temperature ; in the movements of 
glaciers ; in the frequency of cold winters ; growth 
of vines, &c. 
The result of the whole of the investigation 
led him to the conclusion that there is a 
periodical variation in the climates over the 
whole earth, the mean length of this period 
being 34-8-1-0 '7 years. 
Prof. Briickner wasso convinced of tl;e undoubted 
climate variations which he deduced, and so cer- 
tain that such variations could only be caused by 
an external influence, that he investigated Wolf's 
sunspot numbers to see whether such a cycle was 
indicated. Not finding any, he was led to make 
the bold suggestion that such a variation as he 
sought must really exist in the sun, but might 
possibly be independent of sunspots. He finally 
concluded that the climate variations are the 
first symptom of a long-period variation in the sun, 
which probably will be discovered later. 
In the light of the secular period of solar activity 
dealt with in this article, Prof. Briickner's con- 
clusions are of great interest, because not only 
does the length of the period, but the critical 
epochs of his cycle, completely harmonise with 
those found in the present discussion of the sun- 
spot and magnetic curves. 
Prof. Ed. Kichter, in a detailed investigation of 
the movement of glaciers, has also found a cycle 
of thircy-five years, and he pointed out that the 
variations agreed generally with Briickner's 
climate variations, the glacier movement being 
accelerated during the wet and cool periods. 
Again, Mr Charles Egeson not only finds a 
secular period of about thirty-three to thirty-four 
years in the occurence of rainfall, thunderstorms, 
and westerly winds in the month of April for 
