A DISCOURSE ON RAIN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3393, 8 December 1911, Page 9

A DISCOURSE ON RAIN.

THE TAKING OF RECORDS. In his address at Portsmouth, Dr H. R. Mill, head of the British Rainfall Organisation, dealt with the question of “Rain.” He expressed the opinion that if he were to ask every member of the audience individually and privately what rain was the ordinary reply would be that rain is a nuisance. From this point of view he indicated numerous ways, ancient and modern, by which the inconvenience of rain can be mitigated, and went on to state as a general proposition, though it was not a complete statement, that whatever caused air to rise caused rain to fall. The earliest measurements of rain* ho said, were made in a country where there was no rain. They were made in Egypt, where rain practically never fell, but where the Nile rose regularly every autumn, and the rise in the Nile was the measured quantity of rain that fell, not in Egypt, but in Abyssinia, among the mountains near the Equator where the Nile took its source. After describing and explaining in detail the modern English methods of gauging and recording rainfalls, Dr. Mill mentioned that there were 5,200 people in this country who took records of rain. About 4,000 of them made the observation every morning at nine o’clock, and of these people certainly 3,500 were unpaid for the work, but did it simply because thcy T were interested. Some were interested in showing to the world that they lived in the driest part of the British Isles, some in showing that they got more rain than fell anywhere else, and others wanted to carry out investigations of some particular theory of how the weather could be controlled. The fact that these 5000 records fitted in together and supported one another was the most splendid 1 testimonial that he had come across to the real sound conscientiousness of the British people. The observations were made by people in every station of life. Even members of the House of Lords personally took these observations themselves and sent ini the records signed by their own names, and they did it as correctly as the Members of the House of Commons.' (Laughter.) He knew of three or four domestic servants who took these observations simply because they were interested in them, and he liad in mind the case of at butler who, when he changed his situation, told Iris master that lie must take the rain gauge with him and keep a record of it. The lecturor gave numerous instances of tremendously heavy rain storms that have occurred in the British Isles in recent years, but pointed out that it was not those heavy rains which produced most of the water that fell into our reservoirs, but the gentle, indifferent kind of rain. Dr. Mill produced a chorus of “Oh’s!’’ from the audience when ho predicted that, in spite of the dryness of the_ present summer, wo were" now beginning to enter upon a series of years the greater number of which might he expected to be wet. Referring to Sir William Ramsay’s remark in his presidential address, to the effect that the power to he derived from rain water, or from falling water, was a trifling matter compared with that to be derived in this country from burning coal, the lecturer said be nevertheless. felt it bis duty to point out that their is in the world a vast amount of water power not yet utilised but which could be made to do most valuable work and supply the means of existence to large communities.