ON THE METEOROLOGY OP SYRIA AND PALESTINE. 281 



fall for the year was between 80 and 37 inches. Only in two, 

 1877 and 1883, when it was respectively 51-04 and 50-68, did 

 it vary mnch from the general average. Far different, how- 

 ever, is the case with the rainfall lor the rainy season, the 

 stress of which is nsually between November and March. 

 Here there is a great discrepancy. The figures read 39-52 ; 

 23-32; 47-20; 48-93; 17-07; 41-15; 31-81; 38-74; 39-11; 

 46-71; 27-63. Now it happens that upon the winter^s rain, 

 and not npon the total for the calendar year, depends the 

 harvest. Hence a calendar year like that of 1879, with the 

 good rainfall of 33-68, following another calendar year with 

 a rainfall of 32-32, may have a very light harvest, having 

 enjoyed only 17-07 inches as the portion of rain allotted to 

 maturing its crops. Its 13-37 inches of rain in December inured 

 to the benefit of the harvest of the succeeding calendar year. 



As might be expected, the rainfall grows less toward the 

 south, until about the latitude of the ■'Arish (the torrent of 

 Egypt) one enters the comparatively rainless desert of the 

 Tih. This arises from the fact that the southern portions of 

 the country are more and more surrounded by deserts, and in 

 the Tih deserts lie to the east, south, and west. In a jecord 

 kept by Dr, Chaplin at Jerusalem for twenty-two years, and 

 covering most of the period indicated in our tables, the mean 

 annual rainfall was 22-96 inches, — nearly 13 inches, that is 

 about a third of its rainfall, less than that of Beiinit. In the 

 rainy season of 1877-8, when there were 48-93 inches at 

 Beirut, there were 42-932 inches at Jerusalem. In that of 

 1876-7 there were 47-20 inches at Beirut, and only 13-70 at 

 Jerusalem. In 1879-80 there were 41-15 inches at Beirut, 

 and 23-56 inches at Jerusalem. 



Accurate records have not been kept of the rainfall in 

 Northern Syria. Two visits to Cassius and Amanus, however, 

 convinced the writer that the rainfall there must be heavier 

 than in Central Syria. The evidence of this is found in the 

 luxuriance of the forests ; in the far greater abundance of the 

 summer vegetation; in the perennial character of a large 

 number of small streams, such as dry up in summer elsewhere 

 throughout the East (and this notwithstanding the fact that 

 the mountains of these chains are lower than those of Lebanon, 

 and are not snow- clad from June to November, while the top 

 of Lebanon is never free from snow) ; and finally in the 

 testimony of the residents, who declare that the rain falls 

 there more or less through the summer, and very copiously 

 during the winter. 



The rainfall of the Anti-Lebanon and Damascus is far less 

 than that of the maritime plain, and the seaward face of 



