220 



all above the same averages ; February to the amount of more 

 than an inch and a half, but April not much more than half an 

 inch, and May rather less than April. It was, as above stated, in 

 the three summer months of June, July, and August, that the 

 great excess of rainfall took place. The average fall for those 

 three months at Bath, or the average summer rainfall as it may 

 be called, (from 14 years' measurement), is 7 '45 3 inches. The fall 

 for the same three months in 1879 amounted to no less than 

 15-583 inches, or more than double. This exceptionally large 

 amount swelled up the whole rainfall, from the beginning of the 

 year to the end of August, to 29-827 inches, being 9-769 inches 

 above the average for the first eight months of the year. 



There is no June in the back years of the Bath Literary Insti- 

 tution Registers, since their commencement in 1865, -with so large 

 a rainfall as June, 1879. The nearest approach to it is June of 

 the previous year, 1878 (likewise a very wet year), when the 

 rainfall was 4-150 inches; but this was more than two and a half 

 inches below the fall in June of the present year. 



It may be added, in further illustration of the subject we are 

 considering, that the total number of days on which rain or snow 

 fell to the amount of 001 inc. or more, during the ten months' 

 from Xovember, 1878, to August, 1879, inclusive, amounted to 

 169 ; exceeding by six days the avei'age number for the ii:h.oh 

 year, as deduced from the 13 years previous, there being, too, 

 during those 13 years only three, viz., 1866, 1872, and 1877, in 

 which the sum total of rainy days exceeded the number during 

 the above ten months. 



This excessive wet left its mark behind it in the damage done 

 to the crops and hay fields. Serious floods occurred in many 

 places. Travelling from Norwich to London on the 23rd of July 

 after one of those atmospheric depressions which had been so 

 frequent for many weeks previous, attended by a down-pour of 

 rain that continued more or less for three days and nights, it was 

 sad to witness the condition of the land. Whole fields here and 



