222 
east of England, and some of the northern districts have fared much better than 
the western and central parts of England. 
This is the sixth summer in succession which has been wet or showery, and I 
find no record of a similar instance. The seven years 1875-81 are proved by Mr. 
Symons’ Annual Rainfall, just published, to be the wettest series of seven years 
since 1750, and I think it will be found that the principal increase has arisen in 
the summer months. It is not long, however, since it was supposed that the fall 
of rain in England was diminishing, and the decennial periods 1850-9 and 1860-9 
both showed deficient rainfall. From 1864-71 inclusive, the month of June was 
exceptionally dry, the only two years having nearly the average amount being 
1866 and 1871. 
July also was drier than the mean from 1859 to 1876, excepting the years 1861, 
1867, 1871, 1872, 1875. It may, therefore, be the case that we are now restoring 
the balance, and we may have normal, if not dry, seasons approaching. 
No doubt the proximate cause of the wetness of the present season has been the 
continued succession of Atlantic depressions which have passed northwards along our 
Western coasts. As a consequence the barometer has been almost always highest 
in the 8. of France and lowest to the N.W. of our islands, the result having been 
that while fine hot weather has prevailed over Spain and the southern half of 
France, it has been wet and unsettled in the N. of France, and especially so over 
Treland and the Midland and Western counties of England. In Hungary the 
wheat harvest is said to have been the best for 20 years, and reaping to have been 
nearly finished there by the middle of July. 
I think there can be no question but that the effect of the unusually large 
masses of ice, known to have travelled far south in the West Atlantic, must have 
been to produce great atmospheric disturbances in those regions; and as we 
know that by natural processes these commotions are generally communicated in a 
north-easterly direction, we may fairly assume that the present unsettled weather 
is at any rate partly attributable to this cause. We also learn that Iceland con- 
tinued to be icebound at the commencement of July, with falls of snow as late as 
the 4th and 5th of July. Whilst observations further eastward within the Arctic 
circle record warmer and finer weather than we have in England. 
We are apt to forget that dry and hot summers, if not the exception, are by 
no means the rule in this country, and that the calm bright weather with clear 
brilliant sunsets, which are general in Italy during summer in most years, is only 
occasional in this climate. Byron says of a southern sunset: 
“* Not as in northern climes, obscurely bright, 
But one unclouded blaze of living fire.” 
The very greenness and beauty which distinguishes our Isles results from the storms 
and showers with which our short summer is interspersed. I append the follow- 
ing tables ot Rainfall (May to September, 1859—1881), and I have also a table 
of hay and corn harvests since 1771, as well as in a few earlier years. For 
this I am largely indebted to an unpublished record I have by me, made with 
scarcely any intermission from 1771 to 1813, which being made at Stroud, a place 
