35 i THE CEREAL AND OTHER CROPS OF SCOTLAND FOR 1S81, 



being from 2°*0 to 3°'5 over western districts, and from 3°'5 to 

 5^'5 over eastern and inland districts. The snow and rainfall 

 was singularly unequal in its distribution over the country. 

 Over the whole of the east coast, and for at least 30 miles 

 inland, the rain and melted snow was much above the average 

 of February. The excess above the average was 164 per cent, 

 at Barry, 155 per cent, at Edinburgh, 130 per cent, in the east 

 of Fife and Haddingtonshire, and generally at least double the 

 average near the sea from Ellon to Dunbar. The snowfall rapidly 

 diminished inland, if we except Caithness and Sutherland, so 

 that in all the more strictly inland situations, and westward to 

 the coast opposite the Hebrides, the fall was under the average, 

 the deficiency in western districts of the counties of Perth, Inver- 

 ness, Eoss, and Sutherland amounting to from 40 to 80 per cent. 

 In the Hebrides and along a narrow strip of the coast from 

 Ardnamurchan to the Mull of Galloway, and eastward along the 

 Solway to Clretna, the rainfall was from 10 to 40 per cent, above 

 the averaoje. 



]\Iarch. — The temperature of this month was 2°'6 under the 

 average, this diminution being brought about chiefly by the cold 

 frosty nights. The deficiency was considerably greater in the 

 north and east than in the south and west. Thus, in the north 

 Oi Shetland, it amounted to 5°'0, whereas at the Mull of Gal- 

 loway it was only 1°'6 ; and in South Uist, while it was only 

 1°"0, at Aberdeen it was 3°*4. But it was the extraordinary and 

 unequally distributed snow and rainfalls that will long make 

 this month memorable in the annals of our Scottish weather. 

 As regards Scotland, the snow-storms of this remarkable winter 

 may be regarded as having culminated in the great storm of the 

 5th and 6th, when, on all hands, telegraph wires were broken, in 

 some places railway trains were buried 20 and even 50 feet under 

 wreaths of snow, and the east coast, especially from Buchanness 

 southward, was strewn with innumerable wrecks. A sudden 

 thaw set in on the 11th, the effects of which will not soon be 

 forgotten by those who happened to travel at the time through 

 the Midland counties, the low-lying grounds of Strathearn and 

 Strathallau being converted into a chain of lakes rolling large 

 waves and wreckage of all sorts on their lee shores. The distri- 

 bution of the rainfall over the country was unequal in the highest 

 degree. Thus, near the Solway, it was from 50 to 85 above the 

 average, but higher up Annan and Nithsdale it was only the 

 average. Over Galloway, Ayr, Cantyre, Islay, and the southern 

 Hebrides it rose to from 40 to 120 per cent, above the average ; 

 but in the North Hebrides, Skye, and the coasts surrounding 

 the Minch, the rainfall was under the average, in several cases 

 little more than half the usual amount having been recorded. 

 In Shetland, Orkney, and the coasts of the Moray Firth round 



