400 RAINFALL NOTES, NOVA SCOTIA.—DOANE. 
and not until late fall, and not even then in many localities, did 
the dreaded water famine come to an end. 
With this condition all around us, Nova Scotia is to be con- 
eratulated. Precipitation reports from Yarmouth, Halifax, 
Truro and Sydney, show that the rainfall during the summer 
was about the average. 
In St. John, New Brunswick, Mr. Murdoch, the engineer in 
charge of sewers and water works, states that the whole rainfall 
during the months of Jaly, August and September, amounted to 
only 4.65 inches, or an average of 1.55 inches per month, which 
was the lowest in six years. 
During the same months in Halifax, the rainfall was 10.908 
inches, or very little below the average. Truro had a rainfall 
of 11.11 inches, Sydney, 8.76, and Yarmouth, 11.09, inches, 
while the total rainfall in Nova Scotia was above the average. 
The total precipitation at Sydney was the highest on record. 
The last paper read before you on this subject (Trans., vol. ix, 
p. 279,) gave the maximum storms to December 31, 1896. Since 
that date new records have been made for minimum as well 
as maximum rainfall. In August, 1899, the rainfall at Halifax 
was 1.542 inches, the lowest on record for that month. In Octo- 
ber, 1897, the rainfall was 0.746 inches, the lowest record for any 
month. In November, 1898, the highest rainfall for that month, 
viz., 10.248 inches, was recorded. 
On the 18th of June, 1897, a heavy storm occurred at 
Halifax. It was reported by Mr. Augustus Allison, Dominion 
Government Meteorological Agent, as 0.577 inches, and 4,2 hours 
in duration. Mr, R, Cogswell gave the precipitation as 0.5 for 
the heaviest part of the storm. It Is to be regretted that the 
actual time of the heaviest downpour was not noted. Several 
observers give the time as about 15 minutes, which would make 
the rate of fail two inches per hour. 
Mr. James Little, meteorological observer at Truro, reports a 
thunderstorm of great severity, accompanied by heavy rain, on 
