190 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



stated " the current series has so far no maximum beyond 26.56 

 inclies, and analogy indicates a heavy rainfall for the approaching 

 season " — 36.36 inches, 35.55 inches, and 32.79 inches rainfall having 

 occurred in 1852-3, 1861-2, and 1867-8, and 36.00 inches for 1849-50, 

 of course might have been added. The fact was that 16.51 inches 

 was all the amount for 1881-2, which was then commencing, and 

 18.11 inches was all we had in 1882-3. But does it follow that such 

 excessive amount as from 33 to 36 inches of rain in a whole season 

 was necessarily due ? I think not; more especially as the comple- 

 ment for the cycle was made up to 130.37 inches by the end of 1882-3, 

 simply showing that the six seasons were nearer averaged, than in 

 some of the other rain cycles; and it is observable that it only reached 

 26.53 inches in the series of five years between 1870-1 and 1876-7, 

 which should be conclusive in itself. But the question is intimately 

 related, doubtless, to the illustration I have already given of about 

 eighteen storms, during our thirty-four or thirty-five years records. 

 The last cycle has had three such storms at any rate. To work up 

 the whole facts, a complete analysis should be made of Dr. Logan's 

 daily meteorological register, his monthly remarks, and the "Press" 

 remarks; but still we may approximate tolerably well in the way I 

 have described already. 



I am now writing, February fourth, and the rain storm has continued 

 at intervals to date. Sunday's rain seems to have added only .09 inches 

 to the 6.52 inclies already noted. Early this morning we had quite a 

 heavy rain, however, and the threatening clouds have entirely 

 obscured the sky all day. Sergeant Barwick reports a very low 

 barometer last night, and cannot well account for our not getting 

 more rain up to that date. The downpour has been at Santa Barbara, 

 however, and the south, although with great variations. The dry 

 season prognostic, seems a little a,t a discount at present, but it will 

 not be an anomaly opposed to forty years precedent if it proves a wet 

 season. We need some inches rainfall yet, during the rainy season, to 

 make up a dry season maximum. In the event of its footing up much 

 more by June, and proving, therefore, an abnormal season, it may be 

 within the range of possibility, that the supposed cosmic, volcanic, or 

 other matter, floating in our atmosphere for so many months, at an alti- 

 tude of about forty-six miles, as Professor Helmholtz, of Vienna, ascer- 

 tained or computed, and gave such radiant after-glows long after sunset 

 and before sunrise, and the phenomenon of green suns and blue 

 moons, observed in various parts of the world, has ultimately gravi- 

 tated towards the earth, and so commingled with our denser atmos- 

 phere, that abnormal precipitation has been induced in the East and 

 in Europe, and to some extent on the Pacific slopes. Of course this 

 is mere speculation, but a query for scientists. And the remarkable 

 sunsets so many nations have witnessed with so much astonishment, 

 has prompted investigations by the greatest scientists in the world, 

 which will doubtless lead to most important results that may be 

 learned from them. Meanwhile, right here. Dr. Pyburn, of this city, 

 suggests, regarding rain phenomena, that as the nature of all space 

 beyond the limits of our atmosphere may be practically the same, 

 independent of special rings of cosmic matter, August and Novem-" 

 ber meteorites, etc., and the earth revolves around the sun in such 

 space, practically obtaining for the whole earth the same annual 

 amount of heat, and causing the same amount of evaporation; so the 

 whole precipitation of rainfall around the earth, should be nearly the 



