58 OBITUARY NOTICES. 



years he was an assistant in the Meteorological Department of the Board of 

 Trade under the late Admiral FitzRoy, who was then organizing his system 

 of storm-warnings. 



In addition to his official duties, and possibly in collision witli them, Mr. 

 Symons was already collecting records of the fall of rain, a pursuit the value 

 of which Admiral FitzRoy failed to appreciate very highly, and being com- 

 pelled to make choice between the one branch of work and the other, Mr. 

 Symons adhered to his own course. He foresaw the importance of a study 

 of the rainfall in view of the increasing demand upon the water resources of 

 the kingdom, necessitated by the growth of population, improved and more 

 systematic sanitation, and the additional demands of growing industries. In 

 i860 he published his first annual volume of the Bi'itish Rainfall, which con- 

 tained records from 168 stations — namely, 163 in England and five in Wales, 

 there being none for Scotland or Ireland. With persistent energy he con- 

 tinued for 40 years to develop this unique organization of voluntary observers. 

 His last published British Rainfall for 1898, contained records from 2,545 

 stations in England, 237 in Wales, 436 in Scotland and 186 in Ireland — a total 

 of 3,404 stations. It is claimed for him that at the time of his death he was 

 the head of one of the largest purely volunteer organizations in existence, 

 having over 3,000 observers in all parts of the kingdom. His annual digest of 

 their records is a standard work in which not only meteorologists but civil 

 engineers, sanitary experts, and others, place unquestioning confidence. 



A determining factor which encouraged Mr. Symons to persevere with 

 studies which were then imperfectly understood and little appreciated was the 

 recurrence of the terrible outbreaks of cholera which afflicted England and 

 Europe throughout the middle part of the century. He was among the first 

 to perceive in this connection the necessity of determining the amount and 

 distribution of the water supply. His first step was to ascertain what records 

 of rainfall were already in existence. These he found to be very much 

 scattered. While some parts of the country were more or less covered, other 

 very large districts were entirely without them, and such records as there 

 were related to varying periods of time, and could not be correlated. This 

 was the cause of his setting to work to organize a band of observers who 

 would undertake to observe the amount of the rainfall each day, using tested 

 gauges satisfactorily exposed and capable of giving accurate results. The 

 need of precautions to ensure these conditions was apparent to all as soon as 

 they were put into practice, for the data already in existence were proved to 

 be frequently valueless. One gauge was discovered which had been orna- 

 mented with a small roof to protect it from the rain, which it was its purpose 

 to measure. Others were placed where water could drip into them from 

 over-hanging trees, and so forth. Mr. Symons visited personally and tested 

 every gauge. The proper distribution of the gauges over the kingdom was 

 also a part of his task. Private individuals were induced to take up the 

 work, procure gauges at their own cost, and make the observations methodi- 

 cally from no motive but the public good. The result of these labours has 

 been the accumulatiom of a mass of data such as exists in no other country, 

 and which is now available for use in connexion with a variety of questions 

 relating to the sanitary and hygienic needs of the country. Mr. S3 mons told 

 of one case in which a municipality was put to the expense of many thousands 



