STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 397 



local wind originating in the south of France, but as a grand northwest 

 European wind coming from the north seas and northwest Atlantic. Then 

 it brings black clouds loaded with rain which may fall in the district or 

 out at sea, and the wet bulb thermometer rises. When rain does fall, with 

 a northwest wind, there is generally a grand oceanic and European north- 

 westerly storm; but such rain is rare. It is still more so with the strictly 

 continental winds, or the north northeast and east winds. Indeed, when 

 rain falls at Mentone, with any such winds, it is generally at the end of a 

 European gale from these regions, of which the newspapers bring us the 

 details a few days later. Such rain becomes snow on the higher eleva- 

 tions of the mountains that surround and inclose the district. 



Even with a direct southeast wind, snow may fall, exceptionally, at Men- 

 tone, inside the amphitheater, owing to its being open to the southeast in a 

 line with the high mountains of Corsica, which lie direct southeast and are 

 thus covered with snow. Snow, with a southeasterly wind, generally falls 

 in the latter part of the winter, in March for instance, when immense 

 masses of snow have accumulated on the Corsican mountains. Before this 

 accumulation has taken place, in early winter, the southeast wind is a 

 warm wind, the sirocco. Thus during the winter there is very little rain 

 from the northern quarters; and as, during the winter months, from Novem- 

 ber to May, the wind is generally from these quarters, the dry, clear, sunny, 

 but cool winter climate of Mentone is explained. The exceptional winter 

 warmth, for the latitude, depends on mountain protection and on other 

 causes. 



When rain falls, with the wind in the northern quarters, it is generally 

 gentle, moderate in quantity, and does not present the tropical character. 

 When the northerly winds bring clouds and scud over the mountains, and 

 the atmosphere in the Mentonian amphitheater and out at sea is warm, these 

 clouds often melt gradually and disappear. It is a very interesting sight 

 to see thick banks of clouds thus rising over the summits of the higher 

 mountains in the background, expanding on the sky above, and then melt- 

 ing away as they advance southwards into warmer atmospheric strata. 

 After a time, however, if the wind which impels them is powerful, they cool 

 the air, accumulate, and the entire sky becomes overcast. 



With southwesterly and southeasterly winds, the fall of rain at Mentone, 

 and on the Riviera in general, is often very great in a limited space of 

 time; indeed, quite tropical. This is also sometimes the case when northerly 

 winds meet southerly currents on or near the coast line, and condense 

 their moisture. The rainfall may amount to five or six inches in the 

 twenty-four hours. 



Whenever this occurs, the watercourses are filled, from bank to bank, 

 with enormous volumes of water, which carry down great masses of stone, 

 like straws, from the mountains, and excavate wide beds as they approach 

 the shore line. These watercourses are at other times, as in central and 

 southern Italy, mere rivers of stones with a thin stream of water trickling 

 through the middle. 



On one night — December, 1859 — four and a half inches fell in ten hours. 

 The greatest amount of rain that was known to have fallen in twenty-four 

 hours at Greenwich in five years was 2.63 inches. 



The total rainfall during my first winter's residence at Mentone, 1859-60, 

 was 23.68 inches, from October ninth to April twenty -first, viz.: October, 

 8.02 inches; November, 2.21; December, 6.96; January, 3.24; February, 

 .18; March, 1.26; and April, 1.81 inches. These data were given me by a 

 friend who kept an accurate register. According to my own observations, 

 it rained in that winter, in November, 5 days; in December, 5; in Janu- 



