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■when the above Saints' Days come round — a period to vrhich so 

 many different sayings distinctly refer, and in which, as it were, 

 they all centre. The assigned length of the wet period may vary ; 

 it may be set at 20, 30, or 40 days ; but can there, or can there 

 not, in point of fact, be clearly made out any such period as 

 characteristic of the early summer months ? 



This, as Mr. Earle remarks, is quite a distinct question from that 

 relating to the legend, and it is one to which science, after long 

 and accurate observation, can alone return an answer. 



And this is the question I propose now to consider. It was put 

 to me by Mr. Earle at the time when he was engaged in his work, 

 but I replied rather ofF-hand without having gone closely into the 

 matter. It occurred to me lately that, by help of the more 

 numerous observations in meteorology made since then, science was 

 better able at the present day to determine the point. 



Now a continued rain of many days in succession may take place 

 occasionally at any period of the year ; still there are certain times 

 ■when such falls may be looked for as more probable than at other 

 times. There is nothing more variable than weather ; and of 

 weather elements none more fluctuating than the rain-fall in a 

 given district. It takes many years to get even an approximation 

 to a true average, the fall some seasons being double what it is in 

 others. One year that I measured it in Cambridgeshire, 1834, the 

 fall was only 14-98 inches, whilst in another, 1841, the fall was 

 31 •22 inches. Even setting one decade of years against another, 

 there is sometimes found to be a difference of seven or eight inches. 

 Yet, notwithstanding these irregularities, there is an average, as in 

 all cases of tabulated facts of the same kind expressible by numbers, 

 however wide the limits within which they range ; and the greater 

 the number of years for which we continue the measurement before 

 we strike an average, the more correct that average will be. So 

 too with regard to the fall of rain due to any particular month in 

 the year ; it varies in like manner as the yearly fall varies ; yet 

 each month has its own average. How then do these facts bear 

 upon the matter we are considering t Are there observations on 

 record sufficient to enable us to assign such averages of wet to the 

 respective months, as will serve for comparison with the wet and 



