DISTRICT OF CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORELAND. 
157 
merit been employed for the purpose, the mean of the terrestrial radiation would 
probably have been about a degree higher than the result shown in the table. A 
naked thermometer under pretty similar circumstances, at Whitehaven, has been 
below 32° in every month of last year, viz. in January, on nineteen ; in February, on 
fourteen; in March, on thirteen ; in April, on eighteen ; in May, on eleven; in June, 
on eight ; in July, on one ; in August, on two ; in September, on five ; in October, on 
sixteen ; in November, on thirteen ; and in December, on twenty-four nights. The 
mean of the whole minima is 18°‘8. 
The Mountain Gauges . — On the whole, the results are similar to those of the three 
preceding years, but, as might be looked for in a dry year like the past, the quantities 
deposited at the various stations are more nearly equal than usual ; in other words, 
the differences are not so great or striking as obtain in either wet or average 
periods. 
A trifling change in the position of the gauge on Seatollar Common in Borrowdale, 
has led to some rather startling results, which promise in time to guide us to the 
proximate cause of the enormous excess of rain in this valley over every other in the 
Lake country. It is expected that this gauge (Seatollar, supposed to be 1300 feet 
above the sea), which has hitherto obtained about one-fifth less, will in future impound 
quite as much, or even more rain than the noted vale of Borrowdale. 
The year 1849 has not enabled me to add any new fact of importance to those 
already communicated to the Royal Society in reference to this part of the inquiry; 
and as the past annual period has evidently been of an anomalous character, I think 
it better to avoid drawing any inference or conclusion from the results which it has 
afforded. I am the more inclined to defer deductions to a future time, from the 
circumstance of my having been compelled to estimate the heights of some of the 
mountain stations, which have never been measured ; and because I hope to have an 
opportunity of taking the altitudes myself in the course of the ensuing summer. 
These scanty remarks must therefore be regarded as a mere supplement to the papers 
previously printed in the Philosophical Transactions. 
The Observatory, Whitehaven, 
February 11, 1850. 
