and Subterranean Wafer Storage. 77 



as tlie question at issue is concerned. If the reader will carry 

 his eye along the line of marks indicating the rainfall of each 

 year in each place named, and also compare the position of the 

 marks with those in Diagram No. II. for the same year, he 

 will perceive a general accordance. If he will compare the 

 different marks he will see that with the usual tendency to maxima 

 and minima, there seems equally clear proof of diminished rain- 

 fall at least in these localities. The localities themselves are 

 not indeed the best that could have been selected. I should have 

 greatly preferred stations more typically representing the different 

 parts of our island, but the materials for such a calculation, if 

 they exist, are not at my disposal. I should also willingly have 

 made the comparison run over a longer period, but for this 

 also the materials have not been obtainable. 



It is at any rate certain * that the rainfall during the ten years 

 1850-1859 was five per cent, lower than the mean annual rainfall 

 of the fifty years ending 1861, if we exclude the small district 

 of the lakes, which is altogether exceptional. It is equally 

 certain that although 1862 was slightly above the mean, the two 

 succeeding years (1863 and 1864), and the year now just con- 

 cluded, 1865, have been very much below and have been excep- 

 tionally dry. And the study of the carefully prepared and 

 complete tables, now in course of publication by Mr. Symonds, 

 shows that where rain-gauges are similarly placed, and can fairly 

 be compared, they all point to the same general conclusion. 

 But there is still much to be done, and a vast amount of infor- 

 mation to be collected and tabulated before the subject can be 

 fully discussed in all its bearings. A succession of years of 

 short water-supply is a very serious event, and very injurious to 

 the well-being of any country. In England, where the supply 

 is usually somewhat large, and there exists a large subterranean 

 accumulation, it might be expected that the evil would be less 

 felt than on the continent of Europe, but practically this is not 

 the case. The general style of cultivation turns upon crops 

 the majority of Avhich are calculated to endure, and even to 

 benefit by, very frequent rain and a comparatively large rainfall, 

 and we are sometimes exposed to great suffering, not only by 

 diminished quantity, but by an altered mode of distribution. It 

 is only very lately that good observations concerning the rate of 

 distribution have been made, and it is as yet too soon to deduce 

 general conclusions. The number of rainy days in each month, 

 and in the year, might, one would think, be decided easily 

 enough, but even in this matter there has hitherto been a want of 

 system that render observations nearly worthless. Thus, while 



* British Association Reports for 1862, p. 296 (G, T. Symonds, Esq.) 



