CENTRAL AMERICAN RAINFALL. 
21 
tropics they are customary. These conditions are especially 
interesting from the standpoint of the possible ship canals 
in Central America. Though the information is scanty, it 
appears to have been such a rainfall in 1887 which began 
the disasters of the Panama canal. It must be acknowl¬ 
edged that the conditions at Suez, Sault Ste. Marie, and the 
Welland canal are in this respect very favorable, for with 
them the question of sudden floods does not enter. It enters 
in the case of the great ship canal of St. Petersburg-Cron- 
stadt and of those of the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta, but in 
these cases there are no changes of level sufficient to make 
the use of locks necessary. Indeed, the use of locks on ship 
canals whose feeders are subject to sudden and violent floods 
appears to present a new engineering problem, first met in 
the Panama canal. 
Note. —Since reading this paper my attention has been called to two 
remarkable daily rainfalls recorded in Nature , vol. xlviii, pp. 3 and 77. 
At Crohamhurst, Queensland, Australia, from 9 a. m. February 2 to 
9 a. m. February 3, 1893, there fell 35.7 inches of rain. Crohamhurst is 
in latitude 26° 50* south, longitude 152° 55' east, and has an elevation of 
about 1,400 feet above the sea. The report was made by Mr. Clement L. 
Wragge, government meteorologist for the colony. 
Mr. E. Douglas Archibald reports for Chirapunji, Khasia Hills, British 
India,, on June 14, 1876, 40.8 inches of rain. 
These are probably the highest daily rainfalls recorded. 
