850 
The Great Drought of 1893 . 
line weather was experienced over England during the greater 
part of 1893, the drought itself was confined to the spring and 
early summer months. The finest and driest Aveather of all occurred 
in the ten weeks commencing with the beginning of March and 
ending with the middle of May, but a great deficiency of rain 
continued in most districts until the end of June, and the period 
selected for investigation therefore included the whole of the four 
months, March, April, May, and June. 
A partial solution of the causes which led to so severe a drought 
lay in the fact that during the period in question our islands and 
the neighbouring parts of the Continent were exposed to an almost 
constant prevalence of anticyclonic systems, or areas of high baro- 
metrical pressure. These systems are usually attended, as their 
name would imply, by weather of a precisely opposite chai’acter to 
that which accompanies cyclones. The anticyclone may, in fact, be 
briefly styled the fine-weather system, while the cyclone is the sys- 
tem which in its more intense forms brings us our winter gales, and 
in its less violent moods the unsettled showery weather which is 
confined, as we are all aware, to no particular season of the year. 
Apart from the pressure conditions of the four months, which were 
eminently favourable for dry weather, there was throughout the entire 
period a remarkable tendency in favour of sunshine and drought, 
so that on many occasions, when a falling barometer and a cyclonic 
distribution of pressure would have led the wisest of the weather- 
wise to anticipate a change, the rain either held off entirely or fell in 
so partial and scanty a fashion as to be of little or no value to the 
parched soil. The existence of such tendencies has long been recog- 
nised by the meteorologist, but at present no one has offered any- 
thing like a satisfactory solution of their origin, and until such an 
explanation is forthcoming it would be impossible to adequately 
account for such a drought as that of 1893, or to venture upon 
Aveather predictions for any long period in advance. The continued 
presence of anticyclones in the period under revieAv had of course 
a very marked effect upon the mean height of the barometer, Avhiclx 
Avas aboA’e the average in each of the four months, and especially so 
in April — a month in which the barometer is usually loAver than at 
any other time of the year. At the Kew Observatory the mean 
barometric pressure for the entire four months Avas the highest 
registered during a similar period of the year since 1870. 
The effect of the high-pressure systems upon temperature Avas 
shoAvn in abnormally high day readings, but in Ioav night readings, 
both features being especially noticeable 0A r er the inland parts 
of the country, Avhere the daily range Avas exceedingly large. In 
the Midland counties and at most of the inland stations in the east 
and south of England the mean daily range, or difference between 
the highest day and the lowest night temperatures, amounted for the 
entire four months to between 20° and 27° F. On the coast the range 
did not exceed 10° or 15°. 
A far more striking effect of the anticyclonic pressure distribu- 
tion Avas evident in the amount of bright sunshine recorded over the 
