On banach spaces which containl 1(τ) and types of measures on compact spaces

Two closely related results are presented, one of them concerned with the connection between topological and measure-theoretic properties of compact spaces, the other being a non-separable analogue of a result of Peŀczyński's about Banach spaces containingL ¹. Let τ be a regular cardinal satisfying the hypothesis that κ^ω<τ whenever κ<τ. The following are proved: 1) A compact spaceT carries a Radon measure which is homogeneous of type τ, if and only if there exists a continuous surjection ofT onto 0, 1]^τ. 2) A Banach spaceX has a subspace isomorphic tol ¹(τ) if and only ifX ^∗ has a subspace isomorphic toL ¹({0, 1}^τ). An example is given to show that a more recent result of Rosenthal's about Banach spaces containingl ¹ does not have an obvious transfinite analogue. A second example (answering a question of Rosenthal's) shows that there is a Banach spaceX which contains no copy ofl ¹ (ω₁), while the unit ball ofX ^∗ is not weakly^∗ sequentially compact.