96 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



regions or localities, we find the numbers exceedingly variable, and 

 some of them surprising. Clermont receives 630 millimetres, and 

 the mean of the fall in Europe is about the same. About one metre 

 falls on the western coast of Iceland, two metres in Norway, 2.80 

 metres in Scotland, 4.60 metres at Vera Cruz, 5.20 metres at Buiten- 

 zorg, in the Dutch East Indies, 7.10 metres at Maranhao, Brazil, and 

 12.50 metres at Cherrapunji, in British India. On the other hand, it 

 rarely rains in some regions of the globe north and south of the equa- 

 tor; as in the center of the Sahara and of Arabia, the plateau of eastern 

 Persia and Beluchistan, the desert of Kalahari, and the desert of Ata- 

 cama. The plains or pampas of the eastern slopes of the Andes, in about 

 23° south latitude, are likewise subject to extreme droughts, in one 

 of which, lasting three years, three million head of cattle perished. — 

 Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from Ciel et Terre. 



DREAM AND REALITY. 



By M. CAM1LLE MELINAND. 



THERE is a very striking resemblance between dreams and wak- 

 ing perceptions. We see in dreams objects, persons, and events 

 identical with those of the waking state. The belief in their reality 

 is as complete as in that of what we see when awake; the emotions 

 are as deep and vivid. Pleasures have a delicious savor, and pains are 

 even more intense than those of the reality — as, for instance, those 

 of nightmare, and the distresses to which we give ourselves up in 

 full. In all cases these dream troubles seem as real as those of life, 

 and are taken by us quite as seriously; and the existence of every- 

 thing we see and feel is as evident as in life. 



Still we oppose the dream to the reality. The waking world is 

 our true, our only world; the world of the dream seems to us purely 

 interior and chimerical. The incoherence and absurdity of our 

 dreams surprise and amuse us, and we are amazed to find that we 

 have been able to believe, while asleep, in such foolish things. In 

 short, dreaming is synonymous to us with illusion, phantasmagoria, 

 and falsehood. The clearest of the prevailing theories about dreams 

 rest upon the postulate that waking perceptions are the true ones, 

 and the visions of the dream are false. They have answers to the 

 three questions we are used to ask concerning dreams — Where do 

 they come from? why are they incoherent? and why do we take their 

 visions for realities? They explain dreams as former sensations re- 

 viving within us under different combinations, and as therefore 

 simply confused reflexes of the reality. Dreams may, however, some- 



