~ 
269 
Barter’s return for the Paragon, (19 years,) for comparison with 
Mr. Lockey’s, the former shows an excess of rain at Bath of more 
than eight inches. Mr. Biggs’s return, however, which reduces the 
excess to less than two inches, is perhaps better for comparison 
here as the period of years (twenty) synchronizes better with Mr. 
Lockey’s period. Still the question remains; and of course we 
should at first be disposed to attribute the circumstance to 
difference of elevation. But this is not in itself sufficient to 
account for it. For the Reservoirs at Batheaston are three times 
higher above the sea than the Institution Gardens, with a 
difference in the rain-fall at the two places, as before stated, of 
only .09 inc., while Swainswick is not more than 174 feet above 
the Reservoirs, and yet there is nearly the same difference in the 
rain-fall between Swainswick and the Reservoirs as there is between 
Swainswick and the Institution. 
I should rather be disposed to attribute the circumstance to the 
configuration of the surrounding country. Were a rain-gauge 
artificially fixed at the elevation of a few hundred feet, in a flat 
country, it would undoubtedly collect considerably less rain than 
one on the ground, while other gauges, fixed at intermediate 
heights, would collect in proportion to their heights. But 
these results are much interfered with when we take the case 
of elevation, as at Swainswick, arising from elevation of the 
ground itself, with a great variety of features in the surrounding 
district. Swainswick Cottage, where Mr. Lockey’s observations 
were made, is on the slope of a hill inclining down to Bath, 
forming part of a chain of hills almost surrounding the city, with 
valleys intersecting in different directions; the river, at the 
bottom, running close to the Institution Gardens, in which the 
a 
Institution gauge is placed, and always exhaling more or less 
- vapour into the atmosphere above. These conditions of country 
"are quite sufficient to disarrange the ordinary effects of elevation 
_ in lessening the rain-fall. And where they prevail on a large scale, 
- with hills or mountains rising to a great height, as in the Lake 
5 
