72 
PHYSICAL AND MATHEMATICAL SECTION. 
January 20tli, 1880. 
E. W. Binney, F.R.S., F.G.S., President of the Section, 
in the Chair. 
On the Rainfall adjacent to the Sweetloves Reservoir, 
Sharpies, for 1879,” by Rev. Thos. Mackebeth, F.R.A.S., 
F.M.S. 
The following rainfall observations for the past year 
have been made at a station which is 481 feet above the 
sea level, and on the southern slope of one of the several 
spurs of the Pennine chain that take a south-westerly 
direction. There are no less than seven rain gauges kept 
within a radius of three miles of my station. Two of them 
may be said to be in the town of Bolton itself, and of the 
other five two are on the slope on which my gauge is 
stationed, but from one to two miles west of me. The other 
three gauges are situated on a spur still further west, at the 
head of which stands Rivington Pike. But Belmont stands 
at the head of the spur on which I am situated. I have 
named the positions of these various gauges because I find 
no rule to ascertain any ratio of the relative amount of rain 
that may fall respectively into them. Sometimes a larger 
amount of rain falls in a gauge at a lower station than at 
a higher one, and at another time the reverse takes place. 
And this irregularity occurs too in guages respectively east 
or west of each other. Up to the end of 1877 a gauge was 
kept at Belmont at a height above the sea of 800 feet. It 
may be there yet for anything I know, but I can find no 
records of it after 1877. I have the records of that gauge 
for thirteen years, and in every insta.nce they far exceed, 
