528 



METEOKOLOGY. 



METHODISTS. 



the coast of Norway." The same phenome- 

 non is alluded to in Cowper's " Task " ; and it 

 is ascribed in Mrs. Somerville's "Physical 

 Geography " to the eruption of the volcano 

 Skaptar, in Iceland, which occurred May 8th. 

 The sun was observed of a blue color in Eng- 

 land in April, 1821, after an eruption in the 

 island of Bourbon. Dr. Budde, of Constanti- 

 nople, was told in Algeria, in 1880, that the 

 sun has a decidedly blue color when seen 

 through the tine dust of the desert. Mr. Edward 

 Whyrnper has described the green suns and 

 ruddy sky effects through a cloud of volcanic 

 dust from Ootopaxi in language precisely ap- 

 plicable to the phenomena under consideration. 



Extremely brilliant colorations of the sky 

 have been often mentioned in connection with 

 a particular tropical belt. Col. Stuart Wort- 

 ley, who had already remarked the unusual col- 

 ors of the sunsets during a series of eruptions 

 of Vesuvius, was greatly impressed with the 

 gorgeous coloring of the tropical skies, which 

 only occurs in certain latitudes and in well- 

 defined belts, and suggests that it may be the 

 result of a constant stream of volcanic matter 

 thrown out by the great volcanoes in the mount- 

 ain-ranges of South America and elsewhere, 

 forming an almost permanent stratum. In con- 

 nection with this supposition may be noticed 

 the interesting coincidence, mentioned by Mr. 

 Lockyer, that the volcanic ashes were in the 

 present case, even before they reached India, 

 taken by an upper current from the east, " in 

 a straight line via the Seychelles, Cape Coast 

 Castle, Trinidad, and Panama, to Honolulu in 

 fact, nearly back again to the straits of Sunda." 



It is possible to combine the theory that as- 

 cribes the phenomena to aqueous vapor with 

 that which attributes them to volcanic or me- 

 teoric dust, by supposing that the dust may act 

 as a nucleus for the condensation of any va- 

 por that may exist at its level, as ordinary city 

 dust and smoke have been found to act as the 

 nucleus for fogs. 



Annnal Rainfall in the IJnited States. Lieut. H. 

 C. Dunwoody has compiled, under the direction 

 of the Signal Service of the United States, a se- 

 ries of tables with accompanying charts, show- 

 ing the geographical distribution of the aver- 

 age monthly and the average yearly rainfall at 

 different points in the country, as determined 

 from observations regularly taken at the Signal- 

 Service stations and army posts, from the es- 

 tablishment of the Meteorological Bureau of the 

 Signal Service, in 1870, to January, 1881. The 

 accompanying map shows the general result 

 of the observations by indicating the average 

 annual precipitation throughout the United 

 States during the ten years over which they 

 have extended. The region of heaviest pre- 

 cipitation appears from it to be a narrow strip 

 along the coast of Washington Territory, where 

 alone more than 80 inches of rain fall during 

 the year. The regions of the next heaviest 

 rainfall, between 70 and 80 inches annually, are 

 a narrow strip back of this one, a small section 



on the eastern coast of Florida, and another 

 small district south of Cape Hatteras. The 

 most extensive district of the next heaviest 

 annual precipitation, from 60 to 70 inches, is 

 around the northeastern borders of the Gulf of 

 Mexico, in southeastern Louisiana, southern 

 Mississippi and Alabama, and western Florida; 

 while narrower regions of equal precipitation 

 are found in western Washington and Oregon 

 and northwestern California, eastern Florida, 

 and eastern North and South Carolina. In the 

 mass of the Southern States south of North 

 Carolina and Kentucky and east of the Indian 

 Territory and Texas, the mean annual rainfall 

 is between 50 and 60 inches. This region is 

 surrounded on the north and west by two belts, 

 the more remote and more arid one of which 

 is the wider, which together include the bulk 

 of the States north of 36 80', and east of the 

 Mississippi river, most of Iowa, Missouri, and 

 Arkansas, and eastern Kansas, Indian Terri- 

 tory, and Texas, in which the amounts of an- 

 nual precipitation are respectively from 40 to 

 50 inches and from 30 to 40 inches. West of 

 the western edge of the latter zone is a com- 

 paratively narrow region in which the rainfall 

 is between 20 and 30 inches annually; while 

 west of this is a broad region, reaching over 

 the Kocky mountains, and to the Columbia 

 river in the Northwest, in which the mean an- 

 nual precipitation is between 10 and 20 inches. 

 The rainfall begins at the Columbia river again 

 to increase, in narrow belts, toward the west, 

 till it reaches its culmination in the region of 

 greatest precipitation, already mentioned, on 

 the Pacific coast. The most arid regions in 

 the United States are in Nevada and Arizona, 

 and a district in southeastern New Mexico, 

 where the mean annual precipitation does not 

 amount to ten inches. 



METHODISTS. I. Methodist Episcopal Clinch. 

 The summary of the statistics of this Church, 

 as they are given in the "Minutes of the An- 

 nual Conferences" for 1883, is as follows: 



Number of annual conferences 



Number of mission districts 



Number of bishops 



Number of presiding elders 



Number of itinerant preachers 12,628 



Number of local preachers 12,026 



Number of members in full connection.. 1, (501,072 

 Number of members on probation 168,462 



Total of members and probationers 1,769,584 



Number of baptisms during the year of children . 55,876 



Number of baptisms during the year of adults . 61,8fi2 



>. umber of churches 18,741 



Number of parsonages 6,607 



Value of churches $69,42^,276 



Value of parsonages $9,815,809 



Number of Sunday-schools 22,503 



Number of officers and teachers in Sunday-schools. 241,861 



Number of Sunday-school scholars 1,691,065 



COLLECTIONS AND BENEVOLENT CONTRIBUTIONS. 



For ministerial support 



For incidental expenses of churches and Sunday- 

 schools 2,028,195 



For general missionary work 



For Board of Church Extension 120,402 



For Tract.Society 15,280 



For Sunday-School Union 16,282 



For Board of Education 64,900 



For Freedmen's Aid Society 66,444 



For American Bible Society 27,260 





