CENTRAL AMERICAN RAINFALL. 
9 
That the cyclones reach at times to the Bay of Honduras is 
known by the fact that they have at least twice devastated 
Roatan. In Belize people are accustomed to say that the 
hurricane winds do not reach them, but the accompanying 
rain and sea do, and, as a matter of history, there appears 
to be no record of injury in Belize by hurricane winds. 
The cyclones are certainly felt to the north of Cape Gracias 
a Dios. How much farther south this influence extends is 
not so clear. The character of the rainfall and the baro¬ 
metric variations would indicate that they occasionally 
affect the Mosquito Coast, and a slight barometric variation 
here means a heavy response in rainfall. 
The northers give a heavy autumn and early winter 
rainfall in Alta Verapaz, according to the testimony and 
observations of Dr. Sapper. This rainfall comes with char¬ 
acteristics of our northern general rains. The sky is con¬ 
tinuously cloudy, the rain is steady and lasts several days. 
On the north coast of Spanish Honduras the northers are 
well known, but here a distinction is made between dry 
northers and wet ones; the former are more easterly and 
bring charming dry weather; the latter bring heavy rains. 
Still farther south, but now on the plateaus, as far south as 
Rivas and even to the Gulf of Panama, perhaps once or 
twice a year at Rivas and once in two or three years at San 
Jose, there occurs a week or so in autumn which is called 
temporal . During this time the sky is continuously cloudy, 
the air is chill, the wind is northerly, and it fogs or mists 
or gently rains. The native, with his love of warmth and 
brightness, has a horror of the temporal. It appears, there¬ 
fore, that the northers may reach far south on the plateau, 
though they drop the most of their rain on the northern 
mountains and coasts. 
An interesting fact to be deduced from the observations 
is the variation of the rainfall wflth elevation. Taking the 
Alta Verapaz stations with a full year’s record, we have: 
2—Bull. Phil. Soe., Wash., Vol.13. 
