326 Description of an unproved Rain Gage. 
Corollary 3. The earth and planets, in. their revolutions, 
never perform complete circles or ellipses ; for the system 
moving from E to R, during one revolution of the earth, 
the earth cannot get back to the point EK, from which it 
started, and of course its orbit will be a spiral line. 
e past progress of science, we may confidently 
expect, that the time is not far distant, when new investi- 
gations and discoveries shall not only place beyond a doubt 
the revolution of the-seiar system, but also make known 
the distance of the system from its grand centre, and the 
time of its revolution. U. CG. 
Middlebury, Ver. August 28, 1823. 
Art, XIV.—Description of an improved Rain Gage; by Mr. 
Grorce Cuinron, Lecturer on Chemistry. 
Tue quantity of rain that falls in any particular district 
being an important item in Meteorology, any improvement 
m the instruments of observation by which that quantity 
can be determined correctly, must be acceptable to the 
cultivators of that department of science. In the common 
construction of the Rain Gage several causes of error are 
manifest, which when taken separately, might be deemed 
trivial, but whose combined effect is such as every accurate 
it does not make due allowance for them must be erroneous. 
In addition to these causes of irregularity, the cohesiot 
of the fluid, which is necessarily connected with the meas 
urement by graduated rods, renders it impossible to deter 
mine the true height of it. ‘ 
But besides these obvious causes of maceuracy, the fluid 
in the cone construction of the Rain-Gage, is too me 
exposed to spontaneous evaporation. This might, in patts 
be remedied by iaiteaning the neck of the" funnel, but 
here another difficulty arises : if the aperture, by which the 
Towocners the gage be too small, the funnel, in a smart 
er, might led to overflowing; by which a 
the water Would be lost. eee 
