i CLIMATE AND ASPECTS OF THE EQUATORIAL ZONE 235 



of excessive violence, as might in fact be inferred from the 

 extreme steadiness of the barometer, whose daily range at 

 Batavia rarely exceeds one -eighth of an inch, while the 

 extreme range during three years was less than one-third of 

 an inch ! The amount of the rainfall is very great, seventy 

 or eighty inches in a year being a probable average ; and as 

 the larger part of this occurs during three or four months, 

 individual rainfalls are often exceedingly heavy. The greatest 

 fall recorded at Batavia during three years was three inches 

 and eighteenths in one hour, 1 but this was quite exceptional, 

 and even half this quantity is very unusual. The greatest 

 rainfall recorded in twenty-four hours is seven inches and a 

 quarter ; but more than four inches in one day occurs only on 

 two or three occasions in a year. The blue colour of the 

 sky is probably not so intense as in many parts of the 

 temperate zone, while the brilliancy of the moon and stars is 

 not perceptibly greater than on our clearest frosty nights, and 

 is undoubtedly much inferior to what is witnessed in many 

 desert regions, and even in Southern Europe. 



On the whole, then, we must decide that uniformity and 

 abundance, rather than any excessive manifestations, are the 

 prevailing characteristic of all the climatal phenomena of the 

 equatorial zone. 



Concluding Eemarh 



We cannot better conclude our account of the equatorial 

 climate than by quoting the following vivid description 

 of the physical phenomena which occur during the early 

 part of the dry season at Para. It is taken from Mr. Bates' 

 Naturalist on the Amazons, and clearly exhibits some of 

 the more characteristic features of a typical equatorial 

 day. 



"At that early period of the day (the first two hours 

 after sunrise) the sky was invariably cloudless, the thermometer 

 marking 72 or 73 Fahr.; the heavy dew or the previous 

 night's rain, which lay on the moist foliage, becoming quickly 

 dissipated by the glowing sun, which, rising straight out of the 

 east, mounted rapidly towards the zenith. All nature was 

 fresh, new leaf and flower-buds expanding rapidly. . . . The 



1 On 10th January 1867, from 1 to 2 A.M. 



