xlviii 



fall had. been fully and ably treated by Mr. Miebell Whitley in a 

 paper in tbe last number of the Journal, Dr. Barham would only 

 remark, under that head, that the rainfall in December last — 

 10-59 inches — exceeded that in any previous month since their 

 records began in 1838. In November, 1852, 10-51 inches were 

 gauged ; but that month had now lost its pre-eminence of wet- 

 ness. Mr. M. Whitley had presented a very valuable compara- 

 tive estimate of the amount of rain in a great number of 

 different parts of the county during the last forty years ; but the 

 available records commenced in 1728 ; and the calculated annual 

 results were shown on a diagram for nearly a century and a half 

 — a most important secular period ; data for which on other 

 points of climate were also in possession. 



Dr. Barham chiefly dwelt on the subject of temperature. 

 He said that a fairly correct general notion of climate might 

 be got by considering the reciprocal relations of the four old 

 elements — fire, air, earth and water : the first, or heat, being 

 of course represented by the sun, the great source of action ; 

 the others exhibiting the three forms of matter — solid, liquid, 

 and gaseous, — being acted on by it, so as to produce the great 

 variety of meteorological phenomena. The earth is fixed 

 but air, incumbent on it, runs away, as wind, with its heat 

 or cold to distant regions ; and water, the sea, chilled by 

 icebergs, or warmed by the tropical sun, conveys, by its cur 

 rents, winter or summer to the coasts to which it flows. 

 Thus one of the grandest of these — the Gulf Stream — surrounds 

 oxir own shores, and brings warmth and moisture, not only to 

 our islands, but to all western Europe. The position of Cornwall 

 — a great promontory in the midst of this warm sea — not only 

 subjects it to the influence of the waters around it, but makes it 

 a meteorological instrument, superior perhaps to any other in 

 the world, for testing on the large scale the mutual influences of 

 sea and land, varying in temperature and elevation ; whilst the 

 Isles of Scilly may be regarded almost as a large ship moored in 

 the warm Atlantic. 



The registers for the four years 1871-74, of the daily obser- 

 vations made at St. Mary's for the Board of Trade by Mr. 

 W. Thomas, had been kindly lent to Dr. Barham. The effect 

 of this ocean he at in raising the mean temperature in winter 



