206 CORAL AND ATOLLS 



grapliic hearsay account is given by Dr. H. 0. Forbes, the 

 aneroids are said to have fallen to 26*5 inches and then to 

 have stuck, and the mercurial readings became impossible as 

 the storm carried away the barometer. Certain it is that this 

 storm did great damage, and to-day scars in trees are pointed 

 out and carefully remembered as the exit or entrance marks 

 of sheets of roofing- iron; numbers of trees were uprooted and 

 whole areas of the islands were denuded ; and what is of 

 greater interest, the waves rose and deposited wrack and 

 jetsam 150 yards above the normal high-water mark. 



Rainfall. — The annual rainfall, as taken by the Pulu Tikus 

 instrument, gives an average of 7 0*2 3 inches ; the actual annual 

 amounts being : 



In 1902 . 50-73 inches 



In 1903 79-75 „ 



In 1904 . . 78-31 „ 



In 1905 7214 ,, 



The fall of rain as registered for Pulu Tikus is probably 

 the minimum of any portion of the group, and the rainfall of 

 Pulu Atas or of Pulu Panjang could be taken at a figure 

 considerably higher. The annual rainfall is therefore a heavy 

 one, although Dr. Guppy states, after a stay of ten weeks in 

 August and the two following months, that " probably it does 

 exceed 40 inches in the year." 



One curious phenomenon needs especial mention in con- 

 nection with the subject of the rainfall, and that is the sudden 

 advent of a shower of rain from an absolutely cloudless sky. 

 When all the sky is blue and no cloud is to be seen from 

 horizon to horizon, save those masses lying far out to sea, a 

 shower will suddenly descend. On the hottest and most 

 calm of days the phenomenon is most prone to occur, and 

 the pelting of large drops of rain at such a time is a very 

 striking occurrence. It has impressed the native mind, for 

 in some Malay communities these showers are considered as 

 signs of ill-luck — and to be caught in a shower from a cloud- 

 less sky foretells a death by violence. 



