400 A year's weather. 



damage to vegetation. On one day (30th), we had such a range, 

 when the maximum and minimum thermometers in the same 

 screen stood 26 degrees apart^ and on the 13th and 19th, 25 degrees. 



The mean temperature of the air for the month was 49*4 

 degrees, and the average height of the barometer was 29*69 1 

 inches. The range of the barometer during the month was i"o^ 

 inches. Our warmest day in shade was the 6th, 61 degrees ; our 

 coldest night in shade was the 19th, 27 degrees, the difference of 

 34 degrees being the range of temperature for the month. The 

 winds were for two-thirds of the month from north-east, and for 

 one-fifth south-west. We had hail on the ist, 2nd, 15th, and 21st. 



There are two nature phenomena of interest at this season, 

 the changing foliage and the falling leaves. As one looks down 

 some winding coombe the tinted leaves seem the most striking of 

 the two ; they touch more our love of the beautiful. How few of 

 us feel any compassion for the plane or the sycamore which has 

 shed in a single night nearly the whole of its foliage before a biting 

 wind. The leaves have every appearance of being burned, and rustle 

 before the wind on the hardened road, as if they were fresh from a 

 fire. Yet the tree forsaw all this and prepared for it, the leaves could 

 not have fallen otherwise in that great mass beneath the branches 

 of the tree. When once we realize that, as a rule, every leaf is cut 

 off by the parent, and that, too, very soon after the leaf has attained 

 its full growth preparation is being made for its separation by the 

 ingrowth of a thin layer of cork-like tissue at the base of the leaf 

 stalk, the fall of the leaf becomes an intensely interesting study, 

 surpassing, to many, even the study of the tinting of the autumn 

 leaves. Of course, some trees, as the oak, beech, and others do 

 not shake off their leaves so readily, and some, as the evergreens, 

 are out of season, yet so many trees obey the common law that the 

 bareness of winter is understood to apply to this phenomenon. 

 Add to this, and it clearly belongs to it, the action of gravitation, 

 and watch its effects on the falling leaf ; those effects give the 

 flutter to the leaf. But this is a study beyond a weather letter, yet 

 ever interesting to the observer. 



Below are the rainfalls for comparison : — 



40 years' mean. 1891. 1892, 



January 4"85.ins 3'40-ms 2*27-ins. 



February ... 3-3S-ins. ...... 0-22-ins 4-43-ina. 



