Sword and shield., 1885-09-26
The Great August Rain.

1t is not easy for anybody to realize,
or even to correctly imagine, the vast
amount of water which is poured out
of the sky in great rain, like the one
which during the first three or four days
of August deluged so many and SO
widely separated parts of the country.
1t is not easy to understand in the
''realiZing' sense, however fully we
may comprehend the fact intellectually,
how so much solid water can be sus-
pended in the form of invisible vapor
in the air. True, it is no longer inyis-
ible, when it has been condensed in the
form of heavy rain clouds, but it was
all there, invisibly-Somewhere in the
wide realm of air-before it became
thus condensed. Take the ending part
of that great storm, for an example
what must have been the actual amount
of water that was poured down, from
Chicago to Maine, from Maryland and
the Ohio to the White Mountains? 1t
rained seemingly as never before, in al
those regions. Throughout the greater
part of the Middle States it made de-
structive river floods. In the regioI
about Chicago it amounted to pre-
cipitation of about five and one-hal
inches. In Maryland it was not muc&
less. and New York State received its
share of the general drenching Here
in Southern New England the down
pour was such as was never exceeded
if indeed it was ever equaled. In this
immediate region the rainfall in one
continuous rain, from Monday after
noon to o'clock Tuesday morning,
amounted almost to inches. The
great October rain, of the 1st and ID OF
October, 1869, which did such ruinous
work throughout Connecticut (chieiy
by the immense precipitation on the
second day), did not exhibit such a
steady and tremendous downpour as
that of Tuesday, August 4, 1885, be
tween the hours of | and 3 o'clock in
the morning. The volume of this Au-
gust rain is shown in the flooded
streams, which everywhere continue to
be flooded long after the usual time
for rain floods to disappear. The Con-
necticut river itself has kept rising for
a day and half after the storm, the
rain having added about six feet to its
height. 1t was heavy rain in the
White Mountains, the gauge at the Sig
nal Service station on the summit show
ING four and one-half inches.
This great rain came inland from the
Gulf of Mexico. Following the Missis-
sippi valley northward, the storm was
central on Monday at Detroit. 1t ex-
tended eastward all the way from the
Mississippi river to the Atlantic sea-
board pouring as huge food upon
New England as upon most of the great
intermediate breadth of country.
1t is impossible to estimate any such
quantity of water. Even of the amount
that was poured out upon our own lit
tie State, it is impossible to get any
adequate idea. If we were to imagine
the area of Connecticut to be perfect
" flat, level surface, and the average
amount of rain for that one stormsstoz
be not five, but not quite three inches g
what, then, would be the aggregate
quantity of water that was emptied
from the clouds upon our area OF not
quite 5000 square miles? Who can get
any adequate conception of It? Emp
tied in the same time into the worlds
greatest river, it would affect the vol
ume of the Amazon. And this for only
one little spot in the area OF the aetua:. !
downpour. Connecticut, compared
with that area, covers less srelative /.
space than dinner-plate on big din
ner-table. 1t was almost as if the
great lakes had burst their bounds and
simultaneously emptied themselves
upon the country on this side.-Hart-
ford Conn., Tunes.