244 



NINTH A.NNUAL REPORT OP 



Months. 



1850 

 December . 



1851 

 January.. . 

 February. . 

 March. . . . 



April 



May 



June 



July 



August . . . 

 September 

 October. . . 

 November. 

 December. 



1852. 

 January.. . 

 February. . 

 March 



1.15 



0.65 

 0.35 

 1.88 

 1.14 

 0.69 



0.02 

 1.00 

 0.18 

 2.14 

 7.07 



0.58 

 0.12 

 6.40 





24 

 23 

 20 

 20 

 23 

 20 

 20 

 21 

 23 

 26 

 23 

 19 



23 

 21 

 19 



fU o 



12 



5 

 2 

 1 

 1 

 2 



6 

 19 

 9 

 2 

 3 

 4 

 



2 

 

 



It appears that the quantity of rain in the year 1851 was a small 

 fraction over 15 inches. The annual quantity in the Atlantic States 

 varies from 35 to 60 inches, with an average of about 45 inches. The 

 <lriest season there gives more than double the amount exhibited in the 

 ibregoing table. So small a quantity as 15 inches falling in one year 

 would be a terrible calamity to our Atlantic neighbors. It would 

 involve the entire country in embarrassment, bankruptcy, and famine. 



The winter of 1850-'51 was remarkably dry. Tlirowing it aside, 

 and taking the year from the 1st of April, 1851, to the 1st of April, 

 1852, so as to include the rains of the following winter, we have 19.84 

 inches. I presume this figure is not very far from the mean of a series 

 of years. But it is still much below the annual supply east of the 

 Rocky Mountains. 



It is well known that tropical countries have the most abundant 

 rains, and that the quantity diminishes as you go northward. This is 

 the general rule. On examining the records in my possession, scattered 

 through a variety of publications, the smallest annual fall of water that 

 I can find distributed in the Atlantic States or in the valley of the 

 Mississippi, is at Burlington, Vermont, on the eastern border of Lake 

 Champlain. The mean for a series of 13 years was 32.24 inches, and 

 the least quantity in any one year was 20.35 inches, in 1849. In 

 making these statements, the snow reduced to water is always included. 



According to my own register, kept in Wilmington, Delaware, from 

 1827 to 1843, and at Philadelphia from that time till 1850, the least 

 annual fall of water was 38.70 inches, in 1837, and the greatest 66.87 

 inches, in 1831. 



The latter is an extraordinary supply for the middle States, but it is 

 exceeded in the southern and southwestern sections of the country. It 

 appears by a table published in the reports of the Patent Office, that 

 there fell in Union county, Arkansas, latitude 33° 18' north and longi- 



