BY THE REV. R. F. WHEELER, M.A. 433 



RAIN.— TOTAL ACID. 



Relation to that in rain from Row, Dumbartonshire, taken 

 as 100. 



Row, Dumbartonshire 100-00 1 



Whiston, near Liverpool 470-67 4f 



Birkenhead 528-29 5i 



Liverpool 938-21 9f 



Waterloo, ditto 961-98 9i 



Newcastle-on-Tyne 1054-73 10^ 



Manchester 1175-54 llf 



Near an Alkali Work 1539-27 15t 



'' These tables show at once a difference in such a climate as 

 that of Manchester and Grareloch. These numbers do not re- 

 present all the difference, but they represent a difference caused 

 by manufactures and processes of life. At Waterloo, near the 

 sea, hydrochloric acid appears high, but it must be remarked 

 that in none of the cases is all the acid free ; the numbers re- 

 present that which is both free and combined. At Waterloo it 

 is combined, or simply salt from the sea. At Blackpool it was 

 not shown to be high, as the wind was not from the sea. 



" It comes out clearly that there is a certain amount of chlo- 

 rides in the air beyond what the sea sends, even when no alkali 

 or glass works are near. The exact source of these is not di- 

 rectly ascertained ; probably it is from coals, although analyses 

 usually made do not show in coal sufficient to account for this. 

 It is in all probability the common salt from the ancient seas in 

 which the coal plants grew or fell. The amount does not, how- 

 ever, by the analyses increase proportionately with the coal; and- 

 "if" Dr. Angus Smith's "observations of 1851 are correct, it has 

 not increased much since, whereas the sulphuric acid has in- 

 creased very greatly, and evidently with the coal." 



