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of such falls when considered in connection with the mean yearly 
fall. Mr. Symons, taking a general survey of the results of rain- 
fall measurements in Great Britain, finds a marked relationship 
between the maximum falls of rain in twenty-four hours and the 
mean yearly total. The former being estimated at a per-centage 
of the latter, the ratio between these two quantities is found to be 
much higher at the eastern stations than at the western, the 
heaviest falls in the western stations being “relatively hardly 
half as large as in the eastern.” The western stations, however, 
“in point of quantity,” still “maintain their excess as well in 
individual falls as in the yearly totals.” He remarks that the 
“wet stations never have more than 5 per-cent. of their yearly 
fall in twenty-four hours, whereas the dry stations often have 10 
per-cent., and sometimes 13, 14, or 15 per-cent. ;” and he states, 
in explanation of the circumstance, that “the rain-fall at the 
western stations is more uniform in its distribution than at the 
eastern ones, where the fall is, so to speak, more spasmodic.”* 
This agrees with what has been above stated. Nor is it really 
contradictory to what was said respecting the heavier falls in 
Cambridgeshire than in Bath on the occasion of storms which last 
only a few hours. When we take the case of ordinary rains falling 
continuously for a day or more—no uncommon thing in Bath— 
there can be no question as to the larger amount of rain falling 
here than in Cambridgeshire during the twenty-four hours, though 
even in this case the quantity would be less when estimated as a 
per-centage of the whole yearly fall. In truth, in Cambridgeshire it 
is a rare thing for the rain to continue the whole day long. On 
the occasion of the most exceptionally long continued rain I ever 
remember in that part of England, which took place on the 30th 
and 31st of August, 1833, lasting for forty-eight hours, the 
quantity that fell wag rather more than two inches, being not 
quite 9 per-cent. of the yearly total. Instances, however, are not 
* Symons’ British Rainfall, 1864, p. 28. Id. 1867, p. 79. 
