265 
but the differences between the rain-fall of this month and that of 
May, and that of July as well, at neither place perhaps are 
sufficiently great not to leave ground for belief that any one of 
these three months might prove to be the driest after a long 
period of measurement. 
Dr. Shapter speaks of “ snow as not of frequent occurrence at 
Exeter, and when it does occur, it rarely falls,” he says, “in any 
great quantity, or remains on the ground above two or three 
days, excepting on the high lands of the district.” This 
remark applies equally to snow at Bath, to which I have not 
before alluded. 
He also says that “thunder and lightning are comparatively 
unfrequent, and that only very rarely the storms are attended by 
serious or awful consequences.” I have already spoken of the 
thunder-storms at Bath, where the case is much the same as at 
Exeter. ‘ 
The mean yearly rain-fall at Clifton, from the measurements of 
ten years, 1853-1862, at the elevation of 228 feet above the sea-level, 
is stated by Dr. Burder to be 31.020 inches, exceeding the Bath 
average by more than an inch.—As the above decade of years is 
quite a distinct one from the Bath decade, it might have been 
supposed that the surplusage was in part attributable to this 
circumstance.—In a work, however, recently published,* in which 
rain-fall measurements at Clifton are said to have been carried on 
in continuation of Dr. Burder’s to the present time, or for “twenty- 
two years ending with 1874,” the mean yearly fall is set at 32.194 
inches ; or more than two inches above the Bath average. From 
this we might infer that Clifton is wetter than Bath ; but it is not 
at all improbable that the result would be very different were the 
rain-fall measured at both places for an equally long term of years, 
and for the same years. As it stands now the excess of rain at 
Clifton is greater in all the months except January, February, 
* Bristol and its Environs.—See pp. 383-395 for the Meteorology of Clifton. 
