STRAITS METEOltOLOGY. 255 



An excess of rain may, in the same way, be looked for in the 

 years 1884-5, and still more in 1885-6 : but not so great an excess, 

 these years merely closing the subsidiary period of excess from 

 1879-80 (228 inches ). It was the year 1880 that closed the 

 full periodic term dating from the phenomenal rainfall of the 

 rainy term — August 1869 to December 1870 — (173 inches). 



By such calculations as these, predictions about the .Rainfall 

 may, I think, be hazarded even now, notwithstanding that we still 

 have insufficient means of deciding the scientific laws that govern 

 the subject. 



A. M. SKINNER. 



