RAINFALL IN DORSET. 



gauge at Portville or alteration of its surroundings. The rain- 

 fail constant for Portville is 3271111. and for Coneygar Hill 

 32-87^1. (Appendix to Rainfall Report for 1898.) 



Seldom, if ever, do untrained observers estimate the number 

 of wet days in the course of a year precisely alike. Even when 

 they are most conscientious and careful the personal equation 

 comes in and considerable divergence may exist. For instance 

 at Beaminster in the present year two good observers register 

 respectively 1 74 and 1 84 wet days and two others at Swanage 

 1 60 and 173. For this reason those schedules alone which, 

 giving the daily rainfall in full, show that due care has been 

 taken in the measurement of small quantities, and where *oiin. 

 of rain has been recorded at least eight times, have been 

 employed in reckoning the wet days in Table III. Thirty 

 stations marked with an asterisk fulfil these requirements com- 

 pared with 35 last year. In former years the entries of rainfall 

 were too haphazard and casual to afford a satisfactory basis for 

 investigation ; but for the last six years the improvement in 

 registration justifies the following comparative statement : 



