DISTRICT OF CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORELAND. 
87 
by its being blown out of the funnel, or by the orifice getting choked up. But I do 
not think that this cause alone is at all adequate to account for the great compara- 
tive deficiency in the winter months, for there was very little snow on the mountain 
tops during the winter of 1846-4/, less I am told by one of the oldest residents in 
the Fell Dales, than he almost ever remembers. At Whitehaven we had no snow 
worth naming, except on the night of the 23rd of December, when it covered the 
ground to the depth of nearly an inch, but disappeared in the course of the ensuing 
morning. 
The late Mr. Crosthwaite of Keswick, by means of marks on the side of Skiddaw, 
and with the assistance of a telescope at his residence, made two or three daily ob- 
servations on the height of clouds for several years, and it is clearly proved by his 
tables, that the clouds are lowest in the three first and three last months of the year*. 
Moreover, Dr. Dalton affirms in his “ Meteorology,” that the clouds are seldom a 
mile high (or little more than 1^ time the altitude of Sea Fell) in this climate in 
winter. Now the Doctor here probably alludes to, or at least includes, the most 
elevated clouds, such as the cirri, and some varieties of the cirrostratus. But there 
can be no doubt, that between the months of November and March, the under surface 
of the nimbus or rain-cloud (the lowest except the stratus) is far below the tops of 
our highest mountains, and I have reason to believe, not unfrequently, its upper surface 
also : when this is the case, the gauges on Sea Fell, Gable, &c. will receive no rain 
at all, when it is descending abundantly in the valleys beneath. I have a well-authen- 
ticated instance of such an occurrence, even in the middle of summer. On the 5th 
of July 1846 (the hottest day in the year) this county was visited by a dreadful storm 
of thunder, lightning, hail and rain, which continued from two to half-past four o’clock 
in the afternoon. Two gentlemen who happened to be on the top of Skiddaw during 
this storm, state that, whilst the rain was pouring down in torrents in the valley, not 
a drop fell on the summit of the mountain. In this elevated position the sky was 
clear, and the atmosphere calm and untroubled, when below them the elemental war 
was raging with the most terrific fury. The spectators describe the scene as awfully 
grand, beyond conception. The lowness of the rain-cloud at this season is, I appre- 
hend, the principal cause of the small quantity of rain in proportion to the valley, 
during the winter as compared with the summer months. 
I shall conclude this paper with a few general remarks. 
In the year 1836 or 1837, Mr. Beck of Esthwaite Lodge, about two miles to the 
westward of Windermere Lake, began to register the amount of rain in that neigh- 
bourhood, and between 1837 and 1844, the annual quantity varied from 60 to 
86 inches. In 1843, Mr. Jefferies obtained 90 inches at Grasmere. The results 
at Esthwaite and Grasmere were received with astonishment by meteorologists, 
not unaccompanied by some degree of suspicion as to their correctness. Indeed it 
was with the view of removing all doubt on the matter, that in the year 1844 I was 
* Dalton’s Meteorology, 1796. 
