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Abstract. — The municipalities have gone beyond their role of mere managers of the commonweal of the « communes », and have turned into economic agents : their attitude can determine the future in a decisive way. But their financial means are to a great extent dependent upon the nature and dynamism of the activities that have settled within their confines. Therefore the study of budgets for public services and for equipments is, from a geographical viewpoint, meaningful in two ways : it illuminates the current situation and allows one to malce out the foreseeable lines of evolution. The purport of this essay in methodology is to prove this proposition. It brings forward a first simple topology by opposing, in the so-called « Grandes Alpes de Savoie », the sharp decline of farming villages, the falling off of activity of industrial communities and the striking growth of tourist resorts.

Abstract. — The Marguareis massif, a chalky mole on the franco- italian frontier is 2651 metres high and constitutes an imposing karstic mass. Lithologically isolated from the over part of the mountainous massif by a siliceous substratum, it has an original hydrological regime with a contrasted regime some characteristics of which recall the rainy regime of littoral ressorts — with two minima one very marked in summer and one less important in winter, and two maxima, one in autumn and one in spring — the irregular precipitations are also influenced by the highland situation of the massif. Indeed the snow falls are important and the mantel of snow which remains late at spring makes possible a summer feeding of the rivers which never dry up. The wide karstic passage are full of an ice which melts during the summer and gives a relatively corrosive water but of which the content of dissolved limestone is almost constant. So the quantity of carried material is essentially in keeping with the flow and changes like it that has a very marked maximum in spring and two minima in summer and in winter.

Abstract. — The Niger Republic undergoes a Sahel climate with a whole dry season in winter and a monsoonal weather-type which brings the wet season with a maximum of rainfall in August. The annual amount of rainfall is very variable, especially in the Northern country which is a proper desert. This paper studies : — by way of the correlation coefficient of Spearman : the rainfall regime variability ; — by a statistical method : the variability concerning the duration and the occurence of the wet season. It means that the rainfall regime, even during the wet season and the end of this wet season are nearly stable and indépendant of the variation in the annual rainfall amount, though variability increases Northwards. About the occurence of the wet season, three regional types can be found : one with prevailing advance and delay, one with prevailing increase and shrinkage, one for which any occurence can be expected with the same frequency.