440 J. Brocklesby— Rainfall in the United States 
European country which presents results opposed to the 
theory.” 
From the comparatively small number of the tables of rain- 
fall which Mr. Meldrum gives, and from his silencé upon the 
subject, we may, I think, safely conclude that he did not con- 
sult Mr. Charles A. Schott’s elaborate article on the “ Rainfall 
in the United States,” published by the Smithsonian Institu- 
tion, a work which embraces abstracts of records of aqueous 
precipitation from about twenty-two hundred stations. The 
Investigations, therefore, of Mr. Meldrum, so far as this country 
is concerned, may be regarded as incomplete. 
As the following discussion is based upon Mr. Schott’s tables, 
it may not be amiss to state briefly in what manner they have 
n so constructed and apvoatisd that the variations in the 
annual rainfall throughout the United States admit of ready 
comparison with the changés in the extent of the solar spots. 
From the whole number of stations whose mean annual rain- 
record of these stations extends, with greater or less intervals, 
— 1799 to 1867. 
) 
hibit the nature of the fluctuations from year to year more dis- 
tinctly, the author unites them in groups, formed of stations 
where the annual rainfall appears subject to the same laws. 
