Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1858-07-10


I'M ans sloa atSts
lsesic Tor ia nd dbssFy s3i61s aff6t ~
.psfsliek x9br lhs whole area east of md including
Kanss below The forty fourth parallel of lati-
the Of water falling has been
sits. The average of observed plsces gives about
ten inches as the depth for May, and se incAes Tor
the first twelve days Of June; making ct least df-
teen inches IN fOrty.five consecutive days The
whole valley of the Mississippi, below ST. Paul, has
been constantly deluged by these rains, and though
those falling early in May were thought to be unpre-
cedented the last one, Of June 10th to 12th gave
greater quantity than had fallen in the same num-
Der Of hours before, and its whole quantity, Of at
least Eve inches in DEPTH was at once thrown off by
the soil already saturated.
We cannot wonder at the foods of the Mississippi
and its tributary rivers, under the extraordinary
succession of deluges. One-tbird OF the average
rain fall for the year is brought within period OF
forty days, and these are continuously cloudy days,
ALSO so that little relief is given by evaporation
At least ten inches of this quantity is over
the annual average, ana for the four hundred and
fifty thousand square miles included in this of
excessive rains within the Mississippi valley, this
surplus quantity of water would make sheet two
hundred miles square and ten feet deep, or twenty
miles square and one thousand feet Deep The de-
nzens of the great Mississippi plain have had this
vast quantity Of water to dspossess themselves Of
and we cannot wonder that those living the river
lowlands have been compelled to give place to the
foods for while.
Most of the measurements we find recorded are
at points not touched by the tropical tornadoes
which have been thicky nterspersed over the whole
country. At Beloit, Wisconsin, 1913 inches were
measured in May at Ottawa, Illinois, S5 inches
In southern Illinois the quantities were much
greater, though We have seen no measurements
Tornadoes and flooding rains were almost constant
in line from Kansas to Cincinnati during much of
May, and this side the Alleghanies they repeat
ed on scale but little below the former in violence
At Marlborough in Chester county of this State, 96
inches of rain fell in May; and at several registers
in this city and vicinity about four and hal! inches
were measured in the great rain of June 18th and
18th, which gave still greater quantity over the
whole country west of the mountains to Kansas
Localities visited by the tornadoes certainly receiv
ed two three inches more in depth of water than
those not visited, and in such local storms not
unfrequently six inches of water will fall in two
three hours.
1t is apparent that this excessive quantity of rain
is derived ON irregularities in atmospheric crcula
tion originating beyond the of country visited,
and even beyond the continent ITSELF The winds
experienced at the tme previously, had the least
possible to do with the events and the hundred tor
nadoes that appeared in various places from Kansas
to the Atlantic were but incidents OF the general
of moisture and of the fall of that moisture in
rain. 1t will probably be found that the southern
hemisphere, or the opposite half of the northern
hemisphere, has been suffering deficiency in rain
corresponding to our excess, and possibly, the
excessive heat reported prevailing in Australia,
remotely, if not directly, influenced the supply Of
this part of the earth with an excess of moisture
evaporated from southern seas.
These problems in physics are the greatest yet re-
manning to be solved in the whole domain of science,
and the opposite hemispheres be consulted for
the necessary observation. The idest absurdty of
the time is to undertake the prediction of such events,
great small and the discussion of them, in any
manner, is SO often overloaded with shallow attempts
at positive prediction that those who would be glad
to look into the of these great physical phe
nomena, prefer to wait silently another century, if
much time shall. be necessary to this work of the
oriss and EMPIRES Philadelphia North Ameri-
can.