1870.] Rainfall in England. 467 



the plant-remains alone, and tins lias been strangely confirmed by 

 the discovery of reptiles of the same type (Dicynodontia). 



Very many years must necessarily pass away before the Geolo- 

 gical Survey of India is completed, nor can Dr. Oldham and his 

 present staff hope to see its accomplishment, but they have done 

 sufficient already to indicate the great geological features of the 

 country, and we may hope to see in one of their future publications, 

 a table of succession of the Indian strata as far as at present deter- 

 mined, with their probable European equivalents. 



IY. RAINFALL IN ENGLAND. 

 By W. Pengelly, F.R.S. 



As regularly as the new year comes, and very speedily afterwards, 

 come Mr. Symons's 'British Rainfalls,' containing the well-tabu- 

 lated results obtained by many hundreds of rain observers whose 

 gauges are spread over Great Britain and Ireland, as well as the 

 adjacent isles. 



The data contained in these annual publications are of great 

 interest, not only in themselves and as they stand, but because they 

 are capable of being worked up and discussed in various ways, some 

 of which I will now proceed to illustrate. 



The Rainfall of England and Wales. — During 1869, there 

 were in Great Britain south of the Tweed and Solway no fewer 

 than 1093 gauges at work, giving an average of about 21 for each 

 county, but, as may be supposed, without any approach to uni- 

 formity of distribution. They were most thickly strewn in Middle- 

 sex, and most sparingly in Montgomeryshire, there being one gauge 

 for every 5973 acres in the former, and for every 284,060 acres in 

 the latter ; that is relatively about forty-seven times as many gauges 

 in the one as in the other. On the average, there was in the entire 

 kingdom one gauge on every 34,149 acres ; hence, were the distri- 

 bution uniform, each gauge in England and Wales might be supposed 

 to occupy the centre of a square measuring 7 ■ 3 miles in the side. 



It is eminently creditable to the zeal and perseverance of their 

 meteorologists that the mountainous and thinly-populated counties 

 of Carnarvon, Cumberland, and Westmoreland, were amongst those 

 in which the relative number of gauges exceeded the average for the 

 entire country; thus for every ten gauges in Ed gland and Wales 

 as a whole, there were 10*5 in Carnarvonshire, 18*4 in Cumber- 

 land, and 25 • 5 in Westmoreland. In the last, moreover, there 

 were no fewer than twelve gauges on ground upwards of 1000 feet 

 above the sea, three upwards of 2000 feet, and one at the height of 



