48 J. F. Miller, Esq., on the Quantity of Bain. 



spection of the table, where it will be found that we have as 

 many wet days at Whitehaven, near the level of the sea. In- 

 deed, it rarely rains in any part of the lake district, that the 

 day is not also wet, more or less, at the coast ; and, in com- 

 paring the number of wet days at various places, we not un- 

 frequently find them to obtain in the inverse ratio to the fall 

 of rain. Thus, in 1845, they range from 195 to 211 in the 

 lake districts ; but at Manchester, with a fall of 41 inches, 

 they amount to 235 ; at Culloden, with a fall of 27 inches, to 

 237 ; and at Kendal, where the quantity of rain is 53 inches, 

 the wet days are only 178. At Carlisle, the wet days are the 

 same as in the lake districts, where the fall is four times as 

 much. 



We are informed by a gentleman recently returned from 

 India, who was many years medical attendant to the Rajah 

 of Sattarah, that he seldom measured more than 40 inches 

 of rain in the plain ; but among the hills, 30 miles distant, the 

 annual quantity reached 350 inches, and as much as 9 inches 

 had been known to fall in 24 hours. 



The utility and beauty of this arrangement is obvious, 

 since the mountain torrents afford a continuous supply of 

 water to the lakes and rivers, which otherwise could scarcely 

 have an existence. The rivers thus called into being aid the 

 efforts of the husbandman, by carrying off the superfluous 

 moisture from the plains, which, without such a provision, 

 would be in danger of stagnating into pestilence.* 



J. F. Miller. 



"Whitehaven, July 1846. 



* The month of July 1846 was very wet ; at Whitehaven, the fall was up- 

 wards of nine inches, being the greatest we have had since January 1834. In 

 some parts of the Lake districts, the quantity reached 20 -f inches. 



The five mountain gauges, which are at elevations varying from 1200 to 3166 

 feet, would seem to shew that the rain increases from the valley upwards, to an 

 altitude of 2000 feet, and decreases above that elevation. We have continuous 

 results since March last, and they promise to be both highly interesting and 

 important to meteorological science. 



