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By henry CROWTHER, F.R.M.S., Curator of the Truro Museum. 



JANUARY. 



We have made a good start for a dry year. Our monthly 

 rairij hail, and snow falls^ when all calculated, equalled a total 

 downfall of 2*27 inches, the driest January for thirteen years. In 

 my letter on " Weather for December" I showed how the year 

 closed, a little drier than 1890 3 and, singularly, the Board of 

 Agriculture give the wheat crop of Great Britain at 31*26 bushels 

 an acre, as compared with 30*74 bushels for 1890, which is in near 

 accord with the meteorological observations of that letter. The 

 month was cold, our average maxima of heat for January being 48*27 

 degrees, last month it was 46* i o ; our average minima, greatest 

 cold in night, 38*10 ; last month, 34*00 degrees, or a monthly mean 

 of temperature, two-and-a-quarter degrees colder in the day, and 

 over four degrees colder in the night. The sun shone on 19 days, 

 and we had a peep of the sun behind the clouds on nine other 

 days ; yet snow fell on six days, hail on six, and fog was in 

 evidence on four days. Our most prevalent winds were northerly, 

 the next north-westerly. On one day we had the wind in the 

 south 5 it followed a south-westerly wind, and brought with it the 

 heaviest day's rainfall (•74 inch) of the month. We had rain on 

 22 days, and frost on 17 days. The highest reading of the 

 barometer was on the 26th, 30*^2 3 the lowest 29*03 inches, on 

 the 1 6th — a range of 1*49 inches. We often complain of the 

 heaviness of certain days, but few of us fully realize the meaning 

 of the cheerful or depressing effects of the alternating column of 

 air which rests upon us, and is measured by our barometers. 

 Every square inch of this column weighs, when the glass stands at 

 30 inches, about ijlbs. 3 over 2,ooolbs. to the square foot, and over 

 30,000,000 tons to the square mile. The range of the barometer 

 between the i6th and 26th of January was 1*49 inches, one-and-a- 

 half inches, and the oscillation of the mercury through such a space 

 means a difference of about 1,500,000 tons per square mile. Such 



