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moves upward, the vapours are condensed and fall as rain. As the wind' 
gyrates either in one direction or another, the air moves from warm to cold 
quarters, or vice-versa, and rain or dryness occurs in consequence. In a cyclone 
there is a movement of air upwards from the surface of the earth, and this 
movement causes a diminution of atmospheric pressure which is indicated 
by the fall of the barometer, but when an anti-cyclone affects us, as the 
current of air is directed downward on to the surface of the earth, a rise of 
the barometer is observed, and so the barometer becomes a weather-glass. 
As air moves downward in an anti-cyclone, or from a cold to a warmer 
region, its capacity for vapour increases, and so a rise of the barometer is, 
under such conditions, likely to be accompanied with fine weather, but in a 
cyclonic period, which produces a fall of the barometer, as the movements of 
the air are from a warm to a cold region, so rain is likely to occur, and 
as the wind may be moving from the same quarter both in a cyclone 
and anti-cyclone, it is quite possible for a south wind in some 
districts to be a dry wind, and in another to be a wet wind. It is a 
natural law at work that causes the rain to descend and to be equally 
distributed all over the country. The rain in our own districts increases 
with the elevation of the ground on an average at the rate of two and a half 
per cent, for every 100 feet of elevation. But during the last three or four 
years the rate of increase has been very much more than that ; we have 
passed through three or four of the wettest consecutive seasons ever known. 
As a natural consequence of all this, the country has enjoyed good 
health latterly. In the lake districts they have had less rainfall than 
their due, while in the southern counties of our country we have had 
more than belongs to us. With regard to the periodicity of the rainfall, 
there have been many guesses made. We have a suspicion that the climate 
of the country is regulated by the metonic period. With regard to my own 
observations, I find that, taking underground water as a guide, the number 
of observations collected from the year 1835 down to the present time give 
every ten years as a period of low water. For instance, the years 1844, 1854, 
1864, and 1874, or 1844-5, 1854-5, 1864-5, and 1874-5, are the low periods, 
which run from the latter part of one year into the beginning of the next. 
These are periods of marked lowness, but whether they have relevancy to 
the sun-spot periods I do not know. During the last two years there have 
been very few sun-spots observed ; but whether or not there is any connexion 
between them and the weather, just as there has been shown to have been 
an increase in the magnetic influence of the earth during the presence of sun 
spots, is at present doubtful. Nothing is known for certain on the subject • 
but I have little doubt that as time goes on we shall be able to place 
meteorological science on a firmer foundation than it now holds. As far as 
we know, the laws are extremely simple. Since Dr. Ballot discovered the 
law which governs the wind, the prediction of the state of the weather for a 
given number of hours is tolerably certain. With reference to the 
predictions which come to us from America, it may be taken for granted 
that so long as our country is under the influence of a cyclone, the tendency 
