2 E. Loomis— Contributions to Meteorology. 
us in explaining the phenomena of particular storms. For 
many years I have been desirous of making a comparison of 
this kind, but have been prevented by the deficiency of obser- 
vations of rain-fall for large portions of the earth’s surface. 
Having at length succeeded in collecting observations from a 
pretty large number of stations, I have vee rtaken to compare 
them and to represent the results upon a by lines of equal 
rain-fall. I am well aware that for sorter portions of the 
globe (especially for the southern hemisphere), the observa- 
tions are too few to enable us to draw the lines of equal rain- 
fall with confidence; yet I trust this imperfect effort may be 
useful in assisting us to understand the causes which influence 
the amount of rain-fall at particular localities. 
The following table presents a portion of the results which I 
have collected, and the observations are divided into groups 
depending upon the amount of the mean ee rain-fall. The 
rst group contains all the cases I have found in which the 
mean annual rain-fall exceeds 200 English fnahe the second 
tains cases of rain-fall from 150 to 100 inches; the fourth from . 
100 to 75 inches, the fifth from 75 to 50 inches, the sixth from 
50 to 25 inches, the seventh from 25 to 10 inches, and the 
eighth group contains cases in which the mean annual rain-fall 
is less than 10 inches. This table shows all the stations I have 
ound where the annual rain-fall is specially remarkable either 
for its great or for its small amount, and for those regions of 
the globe where only a few scattering observations have been 
found, all known eases have been inserted in the table; but 
for those countries where the ge of observation are numer- 
ous, only a small portion of the whole number have been 
retained. If I had inserted in my 7 iabie the results for all 
known stations, the list would have. filled a large volume. 
The number of stations in the United States at which the rain- 
fall has been measured is over 1200; the total number of rain- 
gauges now regularly observed in Great Britain is about 2200; 
and there are numerous stations of observation in every coun- 
try of Europe. In British India the rain-fall has been meas- 
ured at more than 350 stations, fel many of which the observa- 
tions have been continued for more than twenty years; in the 
islands of the Asiatic Archipelago, wiih ava to Holland, the 
rain-fall is measured at 124 stations; and there are numerous 
stations of observation in Australia, Africa and elsewhere. 
oa available observations have been consulted in drawing the 
es of equal rain-fali upon the accompanying map, but only a 
asia part of them are contained in the following table. 
