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spells of Elijah, for "he prayed that it | ing than the Eastern: the huge Atlantic might not rain, and it rained not on the producing a larger amount of vapor than earth by the space of three years and six the petty German Ocean. At Northmonths." Between 1827 and 1830 a great Shields the fall is twenty-five inches in the water-dearth occurred in the Pampas. year; at Coniston, on the opposite shore, During this gran seco (according to Sir though in nearly the same latitude, it is F. Head) all vegetation failed, the country eighty-five inches, or more than thrice as assumed the appearance of a dusty high much. The tears annually shed by the road, the soil was so blown about that sky in the oriental half of Great Britain landmarks were obliterated, and numerous attain a depth of twenty-seven inches only, disputes afterwards arose respecting the whilst in the other moiety of the kingdom boundaries of property; cattle perished they are gauged at fifty or fifty-five on every side for want of food and drink, inches. one proprietor alone at San Pedro losing 20,000; and such was the rush of animals to the river Paraña that several hundred thousand were supposed to have died in the stream, either from excessive potations, or from inability to crawl up the muddy banks.

In a mountainous region the precipitation of moisture increases from the plain to the peak. Why it does so has been the subject of much discussion. Some ascribe the result to the low temperature of the hills; others treat it as a mechanical consequence arising from the arrest of the vapors; but Mr. Rowell seems to look upon the rocky spires as great lightningrods which plunder the clouds of their electricity, and compel the watery globules to sink by depriving them of their sustaining element. Be this as it may, the mists which wrap themselves round the heads of the hills are phenomena of daily occurrence, and the lachrymose state of craggy spots has been tested by repeated observations. Thus, in the year 1845, whilst the clouds deposited about twenty inches of moisture at Durham, twenty-five at Leeds, thirty-one at Carlisle, and thirtyfour at Liverpool, the quantity which tumbled amongst the mountains of the Lake district amounted to eighty-seven inches for Buttermere, one hundred and nine for Wastdale Head, one hundred and twenty-one for Grasmere, and not less than one hundred and fifty-one for Seathwaite in Borrowdale. The latter place, therefore, received from seven to eight times as copious a dousing as the staid old city of St. Cuthbert, so renowned for its mustard and old maids. Still these British outpourings are far inferior to the furious downfalls of Hindustan. Colonel Sykes reports that at Malcompait, on the Mahabuleshwar Hills, the annual evacuation of rain from the atmosphere is three hundred and two inches, and that at Cherraponjie, It is another general law in hygrometry in the Cossya Hills, it amounted, in 1851, that the fall of rain decreases as we leave to the astounding quantity of six hundred the shores of a continent and travel into and ten inches, or fifty feet ten inches! the interior, because we are continually Singularly enough, too, a slight difference receding from the Great Nursery of vapor. in locality will sometimes produce a great For the same reason the Western Coast difference in humidity. There is a farmof our Island receives a more liberal soak-house, about a mile and a half from En

Still, deducting these local or transitory cases, our farmer will find that Nature has provided for the due watering of the earth according to the requirements of climate and geographical position. As a general principle, the quantity of rain increases as we advance from the poles to the equator. In the regions where the sun is doing the greatest stroke of business in the evaporating way we may expect that a shower will be a very emphatic production. "A black cloud which had formed suddenly," says Mr. Burchell, "in an instant, without perhaps more than a minute's notice, emptied its contents upon us, pouring down like a torrent and drenching every thing with water. The parched earth became in the short time of five minutes covered with ponds." Some of these tropical effusions, indeed, might best be described in the graphic though inelegant language of a man who, in referring to an English storm, informed Mr. Rowell that the clouds seemed so near the earth that he could scarcely get under them: "it did not rain at all, it came down any how." Indeed, you might fancy that Kühleborn, the water-demon of Fouqué's beautiful tale of Undine, was abroad with particular diluvial intentions, if these sudden cloud-ruptures were not usually as brief as they are passionate.

nersdale Lake, at which there falls only as much rain as descends at the lake itself. Even forests have influence in drawing out the moisture from the air, for, when extensive woods have been reduced or destroyed, as at Marseilles, a notable decline in humidity has ensued. It is also an interesting, and to many may seem a paradoxical fact, that rain appears to increase in quantity as it approaches the earth; so that, if a series of pluviometers were stationed at various elevations, as if on the staves of a ladder, the lowest would exhibit a greater charge than the highest. There is, in fact, generally more rain at the foot of a tower than at its top. Nor is the difference trifling; for, whilst one of Dr. Heberden's gauges on the roof of Westminster Abbey indicated a fall of 12.099 inches, another at the base showed a depth of 22.608 or nearly twice as much.

In similar experiments by Professor Philips and Mr. Gray, at York Minster, a deposit of 14.903 in. was chronicled at a hight of two hundred and twelve feet, whilst 25.706 in. of fluid were found in a gauge on the ground. A difference in altitude of seventy yards thus made a difference of seventy per cent in the amount of rain. To explain this curious circumstance it is generally supposed that the drops, which are exceedingly small at the commencement of their journey from the cloud, are argumented by the condensation of vapor, or that they pick up moisture as they tumble through the humid strata they must necessarily traverse. It should be observed, however, that the quantity of rain precipitated in any particular region may be great, whilst the number of rainy days is comparatively limited. Within the tropics, where the clouds are most prodigal in their effusions, there are regular seasons of dryness, when the natives can not reasonably expect any showers; but in the temperate zones, an almanac-maker might book one for any day in the calendar without appearing to violate a single meteorological law. In England it seems that you ought to be waterproof on an average for one hundred and fifty-two or one hundred and fifty-five days out of the three hundred and sixty-five; in the Netherlands for one hundred and seventy; and in the east of Ireland for two hundred and eight In other words, it rains every other day with us, whilst in Siberia it rains only one in six; and in the north of Syria, about

one in seven. High as this estimate may appear, we have particular places in our island where it is far exceeded. There is Manchester for example. What a terrible city is that for people who love fine weather and brilliant sunshine! For six days in the week it is reputed to be in a state of melancholy drizzle; and though there may be much malice in the assertion, no one can doubt that the place is excessively addicted to sky-weeping. Its atmosphere is generally dripping with grimy tears, and the streets are lavishly laved with a strong solution of soot. In fact, the mere mention of a visit to the metropolis of cotton may elicit an exclamation similar to Fuseli's, when proceeding to inspect some humid paintings of a brother artist: "Give me my coat and umbrella: I am going to look at Mr. Constable's pictures."

Sometimes, however, showers of an anomolous description have been known to fall. Our agriculturist would look rather blank if he discovered that his rain was salt. Not wishing his farm to be put in pickle, he would decidedly object to a precipitation of brine. When such cases have occurred, the trees have been found whitened by the crystals, and the herbage has become so pungent that the cattle could not touch it until compelled by hunger; and though there could be no difficulty in ascribing the origin of these saline particles to the sea, whence they had doubtless been whirled by high winds, yet a storm of chloride of sodium has been experienced in Suffolk, at a distance of twenty miles from the ocean.

Or what would our farmer say to a shower of ashes or dust? In Zetland, a dark powder was once rained from the heavens, and grimed the faces of the people as if it were lampblack. Heavy drizzles of sand or ashes, the former whisked from the desert, the latter ejected from some volcano, have frequently been encountered at sea; and so thickly has the material strewn the decks of passing vessels that it was necessary to shovel it away like snow. The dust-storms of India are quaint productions. "The sky is clear," says Mr. Baddeley, "and not a breath moving; presently a low bank of cloud is seen in the horizon, which you are surprised you did not observe before; a few seconds have passed, and the cloud has half-filled the hemisphere; and now there is no time to lose-it is a dust-storm

and helter-skelter every one rushes to get into the house in order to escape being caught in it." It is, in fact, a revolving spout or shower, with dust for its burden instead of water.

As little would the gentleman be pleased with a fall of "sulphur." Yellow rains have happened in certain quarters of Europe; and from the color of the substance as well as the readiness with which it inflamed-matches, it is said, having been produced by its means in Germany -the good people assumed that it must needs consist of genuine brimstone. These effusions, however, are now known to be botanical. The pollen of the flowers of the pine, birch, alder, and other trees is a light, yellow material, which may be easily transported by the breezes, and deposited in the form of a gamboge shower.

did not reject it, but fed in the fields where it lay; and country people who had sore heads anointed them with it, declaring that it healed them. This greasy exudation was supposed by some to have been chemically elaborated in the air, though it is much more probable that it was an animal product, like the honeydew which is excreted by certain insects.

But better things than ostensible butter have been reported in the meteorological way. "On Saturday last," so runs a letter communicated to the Royal Society in 1661, "it was rumored that it rained wheat at Tuchbrooke, a village about two miles from Warwick. Whereupon some of the inhabitants of this town went thither, where they saw great quantities on the way, on the fields, and on the leads of the church, castle, and priory, and upon the hearths of the chimneys of the chambers. And Arthur Mason, coming out of Shropshire, reports that it hath rained the like in many places of the county. God make us thankful for this miraculous blessing." But the learned Society, instead of being grateful for the substance, concluded that it was nothing more than the seeds of ivy-berries convey

More appalling still are the red rains, which have been mistaken for blood. Imagine the consternation of weak-minded people in the palmy days of superstition, when there was a witch in every hamlet, and a specter attached to every hall, if the heavens began to distil gore! In the year 1608, great red drops were observed upon the walls of various building at Aix and the vicinity; and the event so shooked to the spot by starlings. the nerves of the neighborhood, that the very husbandmen-fellows whose sensational fibers were probably as tough if not as thick as cart-ropes-ran from the fields in order to escape the sanguinary shower, believing it must have originated with Satan, or some of his myrmidons at least. Peiresc scrutinized the marvelous occurrence with some care, and found that it was due to a butterfly, which, on passing from the chrysalis state, discharged a ruddy substance not very dissimilar in appearance to blood. In other instances of red rain, the peculiar hue has been traced to infusoria, or to the minute cells of certain vegetables. The red snow of the mountain regions is tinged with the Hoematococcus nivalis; the green snow with the Protococcus viridis.

Perhaps, however, our farmer might be better pleased if the skies were to secrete a sort of "butter!" Such was the case, we are assured, in many parts of Munster and Leinster in the year 1695-6. cording to the Bishop of Cloyne, the substance was so called from its consist

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and color, being soft, clammy, and For tirk yellow; it fell in lumps, often of our as the end of a finger; the cattle

Many, however, are the illegitimate forms of rain with which that poor agriculturist might be puzzled or tormented. He would feel quite cross with the world if his lands were visited by a shower of grubs or worms such as appeared in the Government of Tver, in October, 1827; or a rain consisting of herrings, such as happened at Ula in Argyleshire, in March, 1830; or falls of fish of other kinds, such as have occurred in India and many parts of the world; or, worse still, by outpourings of frogs, such as have been experienced in France. In 1804 a cloud burst near Toulouse, and a host of these reptiles came pattering to the ground, covering the fields so thickly, that in some places there were three or four living layers, and paving the high road so profusely that the diligence crunched its way through their bodies for a considerable distance, and thousands were slaughtered beneath the horses' hoofs. Could the atmosphere well be in a more diseased condition, even if it were to indulge in that oft-quoted but rarely-witnessed phenomenon-a rain of cats and dogs?

But leaving our fancy farmer in the enjoyment of a genuine shower, let us brief

ly advert to the theory which Mr. Rowell | as salt is dissolved in water; but that so ably but so modestly supports. This when repudiated, the aqueous particles meteorologist has quite a passion for rain. still remained in suspension by adhering He fell in love with the phenomenon whilst to the molecules of air. Mr. Rowell's hya mere boy, and his affection appears to pothesis is: "That the atoms of water be have ripened into philosophical furor be- ing so minute, are, when completely enfore he became a man. From his earliest veloped in their natural coatings of elecdays there seems to have been for him a tricity, rendered so buoyant as to be liable, peculiar charm in a shower, and a fearful even when in their most condensed state, fascination in a thunderstorm. He thought to be carried off by slight currents of air; of them whilst walking, dreamt of them but if expanded by heat, their capacity for whilst sleeping, and in seasons of sickness, electricity being increased by their inwhen the body was incapable of effort, crease of surface, they are then rendered the mind was busily employed in the study buoyant at all times, and are buoyed up of his favorite meteor. Fearing that the into the air by their coatings of electricity; scientific sprite which had taken posses- when, if condensed, they become positively sion of his brain would exert a mischievous electrified, but are still buoyed up by the influence over his health, he made strenu- electricity, till, on the escape of the surous efforts to exorcise the intruder, but to charge, the particles fall as rain." In little purpose; for a single gleam of light- other words, the water-atoms are enabled ning, or any passing oddity in the weather, to rise when their electric charge is aug was enough to rekindle the passion of this mented by heat, but compelled to fall cloud-haunted man. Now, familiar as we when the surplus is withdrawn. If the are in practice with the subject of rain, vapor, when condensed by cold, should be the theory is surrounded with a number in a position to part with a portion of its of difficulties-so much so, that in the electricity, the particles will approach each opinion of many, perhaps, we may well other by virtue of their natural attraction, wonder how it could ever rain at all. See- and thus become visible as clouds; but if ing that water is many hundred times the surcharge totally escapes, they will heavier than air, by what means, it has unite into large drops, and descend as been asked, does it climb into the atmo- rain. To explain the peculiarities of a sphere and continue floating in the thin thunder-cloud, Mr. Rowell says that it altitudes which the cirrhi undoubtedly may be regardedattain? How is the vapor condensed into particles which become visible to the eye, and compose the various species of cloud? Are these particles simply drops of diminutive size mere water-dust, if we may so speak-or are they vesicular, that is, little balloons, consisting of an aqueous film with air or vapor inclosed? What is it compels them to condense and occasionally to descend in torrents, accompanied by fearful explosions of electricity, or to freeze into lumps of ice as large as oranges or pumpkins ?"

These, with many other questions, have been thorns in the sides of meteorologists, which theorists have endeavored to extract with various degrees of skill. Descartes supposed that the vesicles were little spheres of water rendered buoyant by the materia subtilis of space. Dr. Halley suggested that the rise of the vapor-atoms might be due to a "flatus, or warm spirit, or perhaps to a certain kind of matter whose conatus might be contrary to that of gravity." Franklin contended that moisture was dissolved in the atmosphere

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minute particles of water, the former being in as a vast mass of electricity interspersed with the proportion of not less than one thousand to one of the latter. Let us consider what would be the consequences of a formation of rain in such a cloud. If but a few particles of vapor coalesce and form one drop, they would be no longer buoyant, and the drop in falling through the dense vapor would increase in bulk from tricity set free by this agglomeration of particontact with other particles. Now, as the eleccles would instantaneously pass away, either to the surface of the cloud or by dispersion amongst the particles composing it, a vacuum or rarefied space would result on the instant of the formation of rain, when the sudden pressure of the surrounding portion of the cloud into the space would bring more particles into contact, and more rain would be formed.”

Now, we make no attempt to appraise the exact quantum of originality which belongs to this theory. It is true that the doctrine of electrical atmospheres has been asserted in one form or another by Eeles, Monge, Eason, and other writers, and that the influence of electricity upon the phenomena of rain has been maintained by Dr.

to affect. Should the particles, however, instead of being vesicular, prove to be solid, as Dr. Waller and others have endeavored to show, still the minuteness of the spherules may be sufficient to explain their suspension as clouds, whilst their increase in size and weight by further condensation should account for their fall as rain.

Thomson and several eminent men; but | portion may disappear after the fashion we can readily believe that Mr. Rowell which these nebulous masses are known has worked out the hypothesis from his own observations, and purely by the aid of his own intellectual funds. And a neat, handy hypothesis it certainly is. It satisfies many conditions, and harmonizes with various well-known facts. Volta, for example, discovered that when water was converted into vapor it carried away electricity; and it has been clearly ascertained that if a vessel be insulated, the quantity of moisture evaporated in a given time is much less than if it were in free communication with the earth. When this vapor again is condensed into mist, we know, from Mr. Crosse's pryings into a November fog, that under certain circumstances it bristles with electric fire; and when it is suddenly precipitated, as in thunderstorm, we find the angry fluid passing from cloud to cloud in blinding flashes, or returning to the earth in deathdealing bolts.

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well has a right to say that, if the changes through which vapor runs, in its circulation from earth to heaven and heaven to earth, can be accomplished by the fluctuations of caloric, as the ordinary theories imply, may they not be much better effected through the combined agency of heat and electricity?

Mr. Rowell's theory does not, and indeed can not dispense with the agency of heat. To spiritualize the water into vapor, heat must be absorbed; to secularize it into rain, heat must be discharged: 960° F. of latent caloric must be received in the one case, rejected in the other. It is by augmenting the temperature of the liquid atoms that they are expanded, and their capacity for electricity enlarged; it is by lowering that temperature that they are subsequently brought into a state of surcharge. The question is, therefore, Facts like these must necessarily afford whether we acquire any very substantial considerable countenance to the theory. leverage after all by assuming the existThat it is free from difficulties Mr. Rowell ence of "coatings"-for the point does himself would not wish to assert. With not yet admit of proof-particularly as the regard to the buoyant power of vapor, we materiality of the electric fluid, and therethink that the demand for electrical coat-fore its buoyant qualites, have never been ings is over-estimated. The well-known established. On the other hand, Mr. Rolaw by which one aeriform fluid spreads through the interstices of another as if the space were vacuous, though at a slower rate, strips the question of ascent of much of its mystery. Water-vapor is lighter than air-lighter even than the vapor of such volatile liquids as muriatic or sulphuric ether. It not only rises eagerly therefore in the atmosphere, but, in the opinion of Sir John Herschel, carries up with it much of the air with which it is intermixed, disengaging itself no doubt from it in its upward progress, to become entangled, however with fresh particles, which again it "carries upward to abandon them for others." In like manner, when the risen vapor undergoes condensation, we are inclined to believe that if it molds itself into true bubbles or vesicles, it does so by settling upon the particles of air and imprisoning them within a watery shell, and these, increasing in weight by further accessions of moisture, will sink to the earth when they become too ponderous for the medium in which they swim. But as the included air will expand if heated by the sun, we see why a cloud may rise, or its upper and exposed

From this theory a curious corollary may be deduced. An interesting but somewhat quixotic question has occasionally been asked-Can we produce rain at pleasure? In Africa we know there are Caffre conjurors who profess to perform this feat. With them rain-making is as much a business as the manufacture of umbrellas or waterproof clothing is with us. You want a few showers? certainly! They can be had for a satisfactory fee. Hasten to the dwelling of the magician, carrying with you the most seductive presents you can command, and if your terms are liberal, the cloud-compelling man will execute a variety of incantations, and then dismiss you with instructions to return in perfect silence, never once looking back, but constraining every person you meet to turn on his steps and accompany you

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