RECURRENCE OF RAIN. 113 



"RECURRENCE OF RAIN," 



The relation between the Moon's Motion in Declination 

 and the Quantity op Rain in N. S. Wales. 



By H. C. Russell, b.a., c.m.g., f.r.s. 



[With Diagram.] 



[Bead before the Royal Society of N. 8. Wales, September 4, 1901 .] 



You may remember that on June 3rd, 1896 I read before this 

 Society a paper on the " Periodicity of Good and Bad Seasons," 

 I stated " that I had not found time to investigate the question 

 of the moon's influence upon weather, some of which I had only 

 so far investigated." The interval between these papers has been 

 spread out with the duty I had to give to official work, but I have 

 got so far that it seems at least one part of the evidence is con- 

 clusive, and fortunately I have found it possible to put the most 

 important parts in the form of a diagram, so that these parts can 

 be seen at once. I think when you have read what follows, you 

 will be induced to believe that the moon must have something to 

 do with the occurrence of rain, however much the other opinions 

 may have been discarded, because here the changes in the rainfall 

 are undoubtedly coincident with the positions of the moon; and 

 you will not be asked to believe any statement I may make, but 

 simply to look at the diagram. However, we will return to this 

 again, and in the meantime describe the way in which the diagram 

 was made. I first carefully studied our rainfall, and found that 

 inland the rain diagrams gave a very different prospect to those 

 on the coast. The inland following clearly in cycles of nineteen 

 years, while those on the coast were irregular. The reason for 

 this I found was due to storms coming over sea and depositing 

 rain water in such quantity that they did not bear any proportion 

 to those inland. In other words, whereas inland the monsoonal 

 and winter rains came to us, as parts of the regular offshoots of 



H— Oct. 2, 1901. 



