The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-07-14
DRIEsT AND wETTEsT SPOTS.
Rambling Review of the Rainy Re-
EiOns of the Globe.
From the Baltlmore sun.

from the Baltimore sun.
The rainy season of the present sum-
mer, which even to a Maryland farmer
affords reason for complaining Of too
much liquid of the temperance order,
prompted the following short invesuga-
ton into the methods Of Jupiter Pluvius,
although at a temperature Of 80, or there
abouts, one might feel inclined to think
with Longfellow. in The Poets Tale"
For after all the best thing one can do
When it is raining to let It rain"
British Rainfall" is a remarkable vol
ume, edited by Mr.. G.. j. Symons, the
thousand observers of the rainfall of the
United Kingdom, which has been more
carefully studied. than that of any other
important part OF the globe It's measure
ments, annually summed up in Mr.. SYM
ons' report, are all made with instruments
of uniform pattern.
The wettest place in the British Isles is
Leatherwaite, in Cumberland, whose av-
erage yearly rainfall is one hundred and
hfty-four inches. Many notable down
pours are recorded IN the various publica-
tons of the British Ra1hfall." On one
day In 1845 there fell In Leatherwatte six
and three-quarter inches Of rain; on an
other, in 1874, Ave and tliree-quarter
inches. In Argyllshire, in 1868, ''spate"
of seven inches of rain is recorded in the
twenty-four hours Of Dec. Z. Two days
before twelve and one-half inches in
thirteen hours came down at Portree. in
Skye, a record which has been doubted.
An inch of rain, according to Symons IL
equal to the fall of a hundred tons of
water on an acre of ground: 1t is evident
that even ordinary rainfall totals up to
a great quantity of water, either sinking
into the ground or flowing off II into
rivers, or through drainage channels, but
when the relatively enormous quantities
which are indicated by such great down.
pours as those mentioned are taken nto
a. IHrsrr nHnf fs.a
immense unless due care has been taken
in all works likely to be affected to allow
for such excessive rains.
The worlds rainfall is very unequally
distributed There are places where the
rain appears to come down in an almost
uninterrupted deluge. while in other
places a shower of rain is not known TO
fall for many years In succession. what
is supposed to be actually the driesr
place in the world 10 the part of Egypt
which lies between the two lower falls
of the Nile, for there, It Is said, rain
has never fallen within the memory or
man, and indeed the inhabitants laugh
to scorn the idle tales of travellers who
tell them that in some places water falls
from the sky. The total amount of rain
which falls all over the world IN me
course of a year, if 1t were evenly spread,
has been put by some meteorologists as
low as thirty-six inches and by others
as high as sixty inches, ngureS purely
coniectural The vast ocean surface can
ed at all. The numerous entries in ships
logs can of course, give no Information
as to the quantity OF rain, but merely
state how often rain has been met with.
The worlds chief rainy regions are the
great equatorial regions OF Gains in the
great ocean, where ram rails IN heavy
showers all the year round Tor about seven
hours, on the average, out OF the twenty
four. Yet in the middle of those rainy
regions there are islands where, as at AS
cension, there are only two or three inches
of rain annually, and the Guano islands,
in the Pacific, near the equator. which are
practically rainless. other rainy regions
are mountainous districts which meet
the moist winds blowing over the great
oceans, and cause them 10 part with their
moisture such as KhaSia Hills, the Wes-
tern Ghauls. and the western coats of the
British Isles, Norway, North America
Chile and New Zealand. Ihe rainless re-
gions on the other hand, are smut on
from moist winds by the interposition of
high mountain ranges. This holds of Up
per Egypt the Sahara, the Desert of Cobb
and the coast of Peru. The great trade
winds begin In regions OF drought ana
end their long journey as bringers of
abundant rain Thus the northeast At
lantic trade wind, beginning near the Mo
roccan Sahara where a shower does not
fall once perhaps IN twenty years, deluges
fall which totals up 10 twenty feet depth
of water in a year.
But any figures representing heavy rains
which can be culltu rum int dHn6lE VI
british rneteorolgy sink into insfgnifI-
canoe when compared with torrents re-
corded from other chimes, and especially
from the tropics. According to Dampier
on one occasion, on the coast of Panama,
he and his men were drinking chocolate
in the open air, when it came on to rain
SO heavily that some of them could not
empty their calabashes, Tor they could not
drink up the water as fast as 1t fell into
them. Arago on Oct. 9, 1877, reported a fall
of thirty and three-quarter inches in
TWENTY-FIVE hours at Joyeuse, and al Gil
braltar, on one day in 1886, thirty-one
inches In Queensland during the great
flood in February of 1898, at one station
over seventy-seven inches fell in four days.
But even these figures have been con-
siderably exceeded at Cherra PONCE, in
the Khasia Hills, In Assam, the wettest
place on earth, whose annual rainfall is
at least five hundred inches
The rainfall in Maryland, annually re-
corded in the Sun almanac. during the
last twenty-five years reached a maxi
mum total Of 81 IS in the year 1889, and a
minimum of 32.15 was registered in 1893.
The heliograph, or sunshine register,
according to Prof. Kremser Of Berlin, Is
now coming more generally into use since