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tion of trees. The cultivation of forests, therefore, is a 
matter of the greatest importance, for, not only do they 
temper the climate by the moisture they exhale, but they tend 
to cause ra*:n where there would be none. 
The subject of rainfall is one that involves so much, and 
that suggests or leads to so many collateral inquiries, that it is 
difficult in discussing it to draw the line where one would stop; 
but I feel that I must do so here, for I have exhausted the 
time at my disposal in giving what, after all, is but a mere 
sketch. I trust, however, that it may have conveyed some 
useful information on a subject that is fraught with interest 
to 250,000,000 of our fellow-subjects. 
The Chairman. — I have to return our thanks to Sir Joseph Fayrer for 
his very interesting and useful paper. It is now open for any present 
to make remarks upon the subject. 
Mr. J. F. Bateman, F.R.S. — I am happy to think that a paper of mine 
should have suggested so valuable and interesting a communication as that 
which we have just had from Sir Joseph Fayrer. There can be no question 
that the registration of meteorological facts all over the world is of great 
service ; but the object of my paper was the particular one of confining the 
observations made on this subject to the British Islands, with a view to 
showing that it was necessary to take all the circumstances into consideration 
with the practical object of providing for the floods which occasionally deluge 
the country, and making a fair estimate of the quantity of rain which might 
be collected from a given area. I desired to show that it was not, as has been 
falsely assumed by many meteorologists, the mere elevation of the country 
which increased the quantity of rain, and I showed that the heads of all 
valleys and the first land (if the hills are only of a certain height where 
they are swept over by the south-west wind, which brings the largest 
quantity of aqueous vapour) received most rain, while as the south-west wind 
proceeds gradually to the east there is a lessening quantity of rainfall. I am 
happy to see that the observations of Sir Joseph Fayrer have corroborated 
this statement. But in the districts he has spoken of the difference in the rain- 
fall is so large that little practical result can be obtained from the observations 
except that it is found that there is a very large rainfall in the mountains 
to the west, while in some of the districts beyond there is next to none, the diffe- 
rence being as between a rainfall of less than 2 inches and the enormous 
amount of 600 inches, so that about 300 times as much rain falls in one district 
as is registered in another upon the average of years, there being certain 
months during which no rain falls, while there are other months in which as 
much as 50 or 60 inches of rain are occasionally registered. In the tables 
which Sir Joseph Fayrer has given, which are exceedingly interesting, 
there are registers of rainfall, showing that in some places no rain 
whatever has fallen in the months of January, February, March, and 
