WITH ELEVATION. 
305 
Feet above 
Inches of 
ground. 
rain. 
Ratio. 
1 
21*90 
100 
6 
20-30 
93 
10 
19*47 
15 
19-10 
20 
18*76 
86 
26 
18*58 
85 
It should be added that Mr. Chrimes’s observations were 
eonducted with extraordinary care, and that his elevated gauges, 
being fixed on poles at a distance from buildings, were free from 
some sources of error which attached to the earlier observations. 
It will be noticed in the foregoing table how remarkably the 
rate of decrease itself decreases as the elevation increases. 
In the year 1880 a rain-gauge was fixed on the top of the 
tower of Boston Church, Lincolnshire, at a height of no less 
than 260 feet above the ground, this being the greatest elevation 
at which rain-observations have yet been taken. The amount 
collected during eleven months was 18*01 inches, as against 
34*11 inches collected by a gauge in the churchyard at three 
feet above the ground. The ratio of these quantities is 53 to 
100, showing no very material difference from the results 
obtained at Westminster Abbey and York Minster. Mr. G. 
J. Symons, reviewing a considerable number of comparative 
observations made at the summits of lofty buildings, concludes 
that “ there is no evidence of any difference between the fall of 
rain, at various heights, from 60 feet to 260 feet above the 
ground.”^ That is to say, the decrease with elevation appears 
practically to cease at a height of 60 feet. 
So much for the history of the subject and the facts observed. 
I come now to speak of the explanations which have been offered. 
And here the first question that presents itself is a very 
British Bainfall, 1880, p. 28. 
