60 



" a mild European winter is made up for by a cold one in 

 America or Asia." * Sucli opposition of character seems to 

 have shown itself in the weather experienced last spring. 

 An American journalist, writing on the 23rd of May, speaks 

 of it as " a cold and backward spring, from which they were 

 (then) just painfully emerging." f There was also a remark- 

 able contrast, as regards dry and wet, in the weather that 

 prevailed in this country last summer compared with what it 

 was in the East. It is stated that " while England and the 

 greater part of the Continent of Europe were scorched to the 

 colour of brown paper and sufiering from drought, India was 

 deluged with rain. In Bengal, the quantity of rain that fell 

 in nine months was 1 1 inches more than the annual average, 

 . . . . In Southern Europe, also, the rainfall was exces- 

 sive. Parts of Italy were so drenched that prayers for fair 

 weather were offered in the churches. Parma is stated to 

 have been partially destroyed by floods, and railways broken 

 by great gaps."':!: 



Even within the range of the British Islands we find an 

 instance of the same contrast. Mr. Jeffries, the conchologist, 

 who was engaged in dredging operations in Shetland, was so 

 hindered all the early part of the summer by storms and rain 

 that he was hardly able to carry on his researches. In his 

 Report to the British Association he remarks that the expe- 

 dition had not been " so successful as in some previous years, 

 owing to the stormy state of the weather. While my friends 

 (he says) in England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland were 

 enjoying a calm sunshine, our climate was exactly the reverse ; 

 and the persevering course of the wind (fi-om north-west to 

 south-west) prevented our doing much at sea."§ 



* See " The Edinburgh New Phil. Journ.," vol. liv., p. 224, where several 

 instances are adduced in confirmation of the above remark. 

 t Symons's "Met. Mag.," No. 30 (July, 1868), p. 86. 

 X "AthenKum" (Oct. 24, 1868), p. 535. 

 §See "Ann. and Mag. of Nat. Hist.," Oct., 1868. 



