1 CLIMATE AND ASPECTS OF THE EQUATORIAL ZONE 235 
of excessive violence, as might in fact be inferred from the 
extreme steadiness of the barometer, whose daily range at 
Batavia rarely exceeds one-eighth of an inch, while the 
extreme range during three years was less than one-third of 
an inch! The amount of the rainfall is very great, seventy 
or eighty inches in a year being a probable average; and as 
the larger part of this occurs during three or four months, 
individual rainfalls are often exceedingly heavy. The greatest 
fall recorded at Batavia during three years was three inches 
and eight-tenths in one hour,! but this was quite exceptional, 
and even half this quantity is very unusual. The greatest 
rainfall recorded in twenty-four hours is seven inches and a 
quarter ; but more than four inches in one day occurs only on 
two or three occasions in a year. The blue colour of the 
sky is probably not so intense as in many parts of the 
temperate zone, while the brilliancy of the moon and stars is 
not perceptibly greater than on our clearest frosty nights, and 
is undoubtedly much inferior to what is witnessed in many 
desert regions, and even in Southern Europe. 
On the whole, then, we must decide that uniformity and 
abundance, rather than any excessive manifestations, are the 
prevailing characteristic of all the climatal phenomena of the 
equatorial zone. 
Concluding Remarks 
We cannot better conclude our account of the equatorial 
climate than by quoting the following vivid description 
of the physical phenomena which occur during the early 
part of the dry season at Para. It is taken from Mr. Bates’ 
Naturalist on the Amazons, and clearly exhibits some of 
the more characteristic features of a typical equatorial 
day. 
Neat that early period of the day (the first two hours 
after sunrise) the sky was invariably cloudless, the thermometer 
marking 72° or 73° Fahr.; the heavy dew or the previous 
night’s rain, which lay on the moist foliage, becoming quickly 
dissipated by the glowing sun, which, rising straight out of the 
east, mounted rapidly towards the zenith. All nature was 
fresh, new leaf and flower-buds expanding rapidly. . . . The 
1 On 10th January 1867, from 1 to 2 a.m. 
