187 



lowest is 28-337 inches on December 4th, 1876. The range 

 consequently during the whole eleven years is 2641, or rather 

 more than two inches and six-tenths. The above extremes have 

 been exceeded in other places on former occasions. Dr. Shapter's 

 extreme maximum at Exeter is 30-98. or very nearly 31 inches, 

 observed in January, 1825 ; his extreme minimum 28-13, 

 observed in December, 1821. 



I doubt whether the former, the extreme maximum at Exeter, 

 has ever been exceeded ; but with regard to the extreme mini- 

 mum, there are a few unquestionable cases on record, in which 

 the Barometer has fallen considerably below 28 inches. Howard 

 mentions a reading of 27-83 inches at Tottenham, on December, 

 25th, 1821,* a day on which there was a very remarkable 

 depression of the Barometer over a great part of the kingdom, 

 noticed at Greenwich and Cambridge and several other places.t 

 Perhaps the greatest falls on record were two of more recent 

 occurrence, in one of which the Barometer, at Barrow-in-Furness, 

 on December 8th, 1886, fell to 27-410 inches; in the other at 

 Ochtertyre, Perthshire, on January 26th, 1884, when it fell to 

 27-333 inches.:!: 



Belville remarks that the great depression of the Barometer 

 in December, 1821, above mentioned, occurred after "a heavy 

 rain of some hours' duration, with the wind S.E." He speaks 

 also of a great depression (28-21 inches) that occurred " at the 

 close of the great frost of 1814, which in like manner was pre- 

 ceded by a stormy wind from S.E. and much rain." 



* " Climate of London," vol. iii., p. 69. 

 + Belville's Manual of the Barometer, pp. 19, 20. 

 X See "Nature," vol. xxxv., p. 157 ; where it is added as remarkable — 

 "that these two low Barometers, hitherto the loM'est observed by man any 

 ■where on the land surfaces of the globe after being reduced to sea-level, 

 should have occurred in the British Islands, and within three years of 

 each other." 



