METEOROLOGY. 245 



difference between the wettest locality, and one in a much drier 

 district. In several other parts of England, they have a greater 

 number of days on which rain falls than in these where the quan- 

 tity is so extraordinary. There are however places within the 

 Tropics, where the annual quantity amounts to 200 and even 300 

 inches. In a district of Hindostan, N.E. of Calcutta, Dr. Hooker 

 states, that in one month 264 inches were measured ; and more 

 than 600 is the annual fall there ! In comparison with these, how 

 trifling is that of 20 or even 50 inches in the year. In Provence, 

 in the south of France, the fall in a year is about 20 inches. In 

 18 13, they had but six days of rain in that year and two months 

 of the following year; and in the next four months of 1814, only 

 three, making nine days only in eighteen months on which rain 

 fell. Who would not therefore prefer the favoured land in which 

 we live to either of these districts ? , 



The quantity of rain in these mountainous districts appears, 

 from Dr. Miller's observations, to increase as we ascend the 

 eminences, until we attain the height of 2,000 feet above the 

 level of the sea, when it begins to diminish. In any one locality, 

 if several guages are placed at different altitudes, the lowest 

 almost invariably registers the greatest quantity. In the Lake 

 District, Scawfell, which is the highest land in England, and 

 3,229 feet above the sea-level, registered in 1817, 128 inches; 

 and Sprinkling Tarn, 1,900 feet high, 207 inches. At the latter 

 place, the largest quantity has been registered that has been yet 

 taken in any situation. There are a few exceptions to these facts, 

 however, in these very localities. 



The result of these observations show, that at least 60 inches 

 more rain are deposited in England than we were previously 

 aware of; that 150 inches sometimes descend in the Lake District 

 in a year — more than falls in most of the Tropics with which we 

 are acquainted, and sufficient to drown two of the tallest men 

 in Great Britain, standing one on the top of the other. They 

 have further informed us of the fact, that six-and-a-half perpen- 

 dicular inches of water are sometimes precipitated from the 

 atmosphere in twenty-four hours, and ton inches in forty-eight 



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