82 



RAINFALL IN DORSET. 



sively that at Hamworthy several days' rain escaped registration 

 after the middle of March. For this omission 0-50111. has been 

 added to the total depth of rain recorded for the month, and 5 to 

 the number of days on which it fell. On yet another occasion 

 an observer had an entry exceeding lin. of rain in July when no 

 rain had fallen, and in a month when the total rainfall nowhere 

 came up to an inch. Here the mistake, which was readily 

 accounted for, could not have been detected from an abstract. 

 Seeing the time of year the large amount of rain entered in the 

 journal might reasonably have been attributed to a local thunder- 

 storm and escaped notice but for the proximity of other observers. 

 The approximate position and height above sea-level, &c., of 

 the gauges at the 13 new stations have been ascertained from 

 the most recently published sheets of the lin. Ordnance Maps. 



Observations have been discontinued at East Fordington 

 House. Those at Burstock, Cheddington (Creed), and Martins- 

 town have come to an end through the removal of the observers, 

 and Swanage has lost an observer by the death of Mr. Burt. 



Tables I. to IV. correspond with those of the same numbers in 

 last year's report and are similarly arranged. 



The year has been a dry one ; the summer particularly so. 

 The July rainfall, next to 1885, was the smallest since observa- 

 tions commenced half a century ago. Referred to the 5o-year 



