280 THE RAINFALL IN 1896—DOANE. 
An examination of the records of the United States reveals 
some interesting and important facts, which it may be well to 
quote at this stage for the purpose of comparison, 
The greatest annual rainfall on this continent is recorded 
at Greytown, the Atlantic entrance to the proposed Nicaragua 
Canal. It there assumes the enormous total of 240 inches (20 
ft.), a figure which is only surpassed in the Western Hemisphere 
on the Mexican Gulf Coast in the West Indies, by Guiana and 
by the coast of Brazil. It is reported that from 7 to 10 per 
cent. of the total annual rainfall may descend in one day. The 
results of such a precipitation can be better imagined than 
described ; dry river beds become torrents in a few minutes, the 
water coming down in a wall several feet high ; marshes change 
to lakes, and the power so quickly developed is necessarily very 
dangerous to any work of man. 
The most remarkable rainfall is recorded at Cuyamaca Dam 
in San Diego Co., California, about 40 miles east of San Diego. 
During a storm ending February 27, 1891, the record shows 
that 23.40 inches fell in 54 bours, of which 13 inches fell in 23 
hours, and 7 inches in 10 hours. The elevation of the reservoir 
is about 4500 feet above sea level. The highest surrounding 
mountains are 6500 feet above sea level, and lie to the west of 
the reservoir between its watershed and the direction whence 
the storms come. The eastern boundary of the basin is on the 
rim of the desert at an elevation of not over 5000 ft. The 
topography of the country is such that a rain gauge at the dam 
would not be likely to indicate the maximum precipitation on 
the three peaks that bound the water shed on the west. The 
most notable thing about the above remarkable rainfall, however, 
is that the place where it occurred is within a few miles of one 
of the very driest regions in the world. The average annual 
rainfall at Indio, San Diego Co., a station on the Southern 
Pacific Railway, about 50 miles east of the Cuyamaca Dam, is 
given by General Greely as but 1.92 inches, and he says of this 
and Camp Mohave, Arizona, where the average rainfall is but 
1.85 inches: “ These stations, doubtless, have the smallest known 
