The Spring Drought of 1898. 
353 
the rain falling on the first and sixteenth of each month, and on 
one day on each side of those dates, we shall find that nearly all 
the rain is gone. This periodicity, though not so marked in the 
last fortnight, seems worthy of further study. 
As regards absolute droughts, the longest was 35 days at 
Langton Herring, a few miles W.N.W. of Weymouth, where 
no rain fell from March 18 to April 21 ; and this was followed 
by a 14 days’ absolute drought from April 30 to May 13. 
Perhaps, however, the Brighton case was even more striking, for 
there a 30 days’ absolute drought was broken by only 0-06 inch, 
and was immediately followed by another absolute drought of 28 
days, so that we have 59 days with only one shower of 0 06 inch. 
Even at the very wet station of Seathwaite, in Borrowdale, at 
the south end of Derwentwater, where the average annual rainfall 
is about 140 inches, there were four rainless periods of 13, 15, 8, 
and 1 2 consecutive days respectively, and there was a period of 
29 days with only one day’s rain (0 - 20 inch) in the middle of it. 
