59 



remember the parched state of the fields, their brown and 

 arid appearance ; the commonest weeds, which usually stand 

 their ground in the most unpromising seasons, in some 

 places quickly running their course, and withering away after 

 the first flowers had seeded. We remember, too, the com- 

 plaints made of the short supply of water, the springs failing 

 alike for cattle and for domestic purposes. Even in Cornwall, 

 one of the wettest counties in England, at Bodmin, the 

 streams are said " not to have been so low for nearly half a 

 century."* Yet it is observable that the total fall of rain 

 during the year was not at Bath so very much below the 

 average— judging at least, as we alone can judge, from the 

 very few years hitherto for which it has been measured. If 

 we set this average at 33 inches and a half, which is perhaps 

 not far from the mark, the fall for 1868 will have been about 

 3 inches below the average.f The marked feature, as regards 

 the fall of rain during the past year, was its unequal 

 distribution through the several months. More than one- 

 third of the whole amount fell in the first and last months, 

 January and December measuring each above 5 inches ; 

 while in the three hot months of May, June, and July, the 

 total for those months together was under 2 inches. This quite 

 accounts for the drought, especially when we further take 

 into consideration the great evaporation caused by the high 

 temperatures, not of those months only, but of the previous 

 months from an early period of the year. 



The rainfall was also deficient in February and March ; 

 but more fell in April, and in August it amounted to nearly 

 4i inches, in some measure making up for the short supplies 

 of the three previous months. 



Extremes of weather in one country are met by opposite 



extremes in another. It has been remarked by Dove that 



* Symons's "Met. Mag.," August, 1868, p, 110. 



t The year having been completed since this paper was read enables me to 

 say more on this subject than was stated at that time. 



