20 
HARRINGTON. 
tropical regions. It is sometimes not a rain, but a celestial 
cataract. 
At San Jose we are able to get some idea of the maximum 
rainfall per hour during the three years of hourly observa¬ 
tions available. It is, of course, an afternoon hour, and is 
noteworthy only from May to October, when the maxima 
actually observed had the following values: 
May. 
June. 
July. 
August.... 
September 
Oct.ober... 
1.90 inches. 
1.02 “ 
1.36 “ 
1.13 “ 
1.15 “ 
1.39 “ 
That is, the greatest hourly rainfall observed at San Jose 
w T as 1.9 inches, or a rate of 46 inches, nearly 4 feet, per day. 
The results of such enormous falls of rain have often been 
described and can easily be imagined. The dry stream beds 
or quebradas, very common on the plateaus,are rapidly filled; 
the water comes down in a wall several feet high; the camp¬ 
ing place, 2 to 6 feet above the water, is overflowed, and soon 
the new camping place, hastily sought in the dark and 
several feet higher, is also overflowed. In such a country 
as Mosquitia dry stream beds become rivers, marshes change 
to lakes, and the.natives temporarily take to the trees or to 
their boats. 
While all this is striking, it is by no means unparalleled 
in temperate regions. Symons records an English rainfall 
of 6.8 inches in one day; 7.5 inches in a day is no great 
rarity in the United States, while the Gulf and Atlantic 
coasts are subject to occasional falls of 10 inches in one day, 
and Boise, Idaho, once reported 18 inches. At Joyeuse,* in 
the Rhone valley, 29.3 inches were recorded in one day in 
October, 1827,and at Gibraltar* November, 1826,30.9 inches 
are said to have fallen in that time. The difference between 
such falls of rain in the tropics and in the temperate zones 
is chiefly that in the latter they are occasional, while in the 
* Wagner, op. cit., p. 16. 
