RAIN GAUGES 



81 



105. It is hardly possibly to over-estimate the value and importance of 

 carefully compiled statistics of the Rainfall. The two great sanitary questions 

 of the day, viz., the Water supply and Sewage of large towns, are in a 

 very great measure connected with the amount of rain falling during a given 

 period, and reliable particulars of the rainfall are specially valuable both to 

 the Civil and Hydraulic Engineer. 



The Farmer and commercial Financier are also both deeply interested in 

 the results of a probable dry or wet season influencing the growth, amount, and 

 value of various crops and produce of the earth. We subjoin a few facts we 

 think may prove useful and interesting. 



Fall of Rain at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. 



Taking December, January, and February as the winter months ; March, 

 April, and May as the spring months ; June, July, and August as the summer 

 months ; September, October, and November as the autumn months, the 

 quantities which fell in the different seasons were as follows : 



The quantity of rain which fell at the Royal Engineers' stations during 



the year 1853-4, was as follows : 



Edinburgh 

 Guernsey 

 St. John's 

 Gibraltar 

 Malta . 

 Jamaica 



Inches. 

 23-15 

 32-77 

 55-05 

 47-29 

 28-08 

 34-31 



Barbadoes . 

 Ceylon 

 Mauritius . 

 Fremantle . 

 New Zealand 



Inches. 

 68-24 

 71-63 

 39-52 

 33-94 

 48-42 



Lincoln is the dryest recorded station in England, the mean annual rain- 

 full being 20 inches. The wettest recorded station is Stye, at the head of 

 Borrowdale in Cumberland, where the mean annual rainfall amounts to 165 

 inches. A fall of rain measuring a tenth of an inch in depth is equal to a 

 deposit of about forty hogsheads per acre. 



