Bellevue gazette. [volume] (Bellevue City, N.T. [i.e. Neb.]) 1856-1858, 1856-11-27
The Amount of Rain railing
YEARLY.


The following calculations which we copy
from the Philadelphia Daily Times, are
strictly accurate, and will be found inter-
esting to our readers:
The recent drought has naturally sug-
gestcd the inquiry whether, with all our
ingenious inventions and wonderful i'm
provemen,s we should ever be able to sup
ply by artificial means the want of rain.
Some of the results of this inquiry, us fur
niShcd by a scientific friend, may not be
without interest to our readers.
On an average, there falls annually in
rain and snow, in Il space of ten miles
square-taking for example, Philadelphia
as the Centcr-an amount of water Sulii-
Client to fill n reservoir one mile square
and $40 feet deep, or enough to fill II
reservoir half mile square and l,4SO
feet-more than "A quarter of a mile in
depth. This is rather more than $40
million cubic yards, or seventy-four bill
lions of gallons.
Again, there falls in rain and snow in
the State of Pennsylvania every year, as
much water as would fill n reservoir AGO
miles long, one mile wide, and $40 feet
deep. This is equivalent to above thirty
two cubic miles of water, 34,S9l billions
of gallons.
= Again, supposing the same number of
inches of rain, on average, to fall in all
parts of the United States rs in Pennsyl-
vauia, the annual aggregate of rain in the
entire territory of our country. would
amount to more than 2,l00 cubic miles
Ii is calculated that the Paramount wa
ter-works are capable of raising twelve
millions of gallons in twenty-four hours.
They do moi however, usually raise more
than seven or eight millions per day.
Assuming the daily quantity at eight mil
lions, it would at this rate require $500
days, or more than twenty-five years for
those works to raise as much water as on
an average falls every year in the small
space of ten miles square. More than
eleven thousand years would be necessary
in order to raise as much water as falls
annually in the State of Pennsylvania,
while more than seven hundred thousand
years would be required in order to raise
a quantity as great as falls every year in
the territory of the United States.
A cubic mile of water is a short and
simple phrase, easily written and quickly
spoken, but the difficulty is for any human
mind to form an adequate idea of it.
Suppose a man to dip from one vessel to
another a gallon at a time-he could not,
under the most favorable circumstances,
average more than a gallon in two seconds
or thirty gallons per minute now, If he
should work at this rate night and day
without the slightest intermission, it would
require more than seventy-thousand years
to dip out the number of gallons contained
in a cubic mile.
In order, however, to form any jus,
idea of the inimitable grandeur on which
Nature conducts her operations, we must
bear in mind, that the water which she
designs for the refreshing of the earth,
she raises, not like our artificial water
works, merely one, two, or three hundred
feet, but high enough to supply water to
every animal or vegetable existing on the
face of the earth-from $4,000 TO $4,000
feet for some of the mining districts of
South America, and not less than 5000
feet for the highest inhabited regions of
Thibit.
The foregoing calculations may be relied
on as correct. We have assumed the
annual fall of rain at A l-2 inches, which
is a trife less than the yearly average,
according to meteorological tables kept
during the last fifteen years; $1,000
square miles have been taken as the area
of Pennsylvania, and 100000 square
miles as the area of the entire territory Of
tho VTpitad States