water brings to our fields precisely the same proportion
of the elements of fertility, because the foreign properties with which
it is charged, must continually vary with the condition of the
atmosphere through which it falls, whether it be the thick and murky
cloud which overhangs the coal-burning city, or the transparent ether of
the mountain tops. We may see, too, by the tables, that the quantity of
rain that falls, varies much, not only with the varying seasons of the
year, and with the different seasons of different years, but with the
distance from the equator, the diversity of mountain and river, and
lake and wood, and especially with locality as to the ocean. Yet the
average results of nature's operations through a series of years, are
startlingly constant and uniform, and we may deduce from tables of
rain-falls, as from bills of mortality and tables of longevity,
conclusions almost as reliable as from mathematical premises.

The quantity of rain is generally increased by the locality of mountain
ranges. "Thus, at the Edinburgh Water Company's works, on the Pentland
Hills, there fell in 1849, nearly twice as much rain as at Edinburgh,
although the distance between the two places is only seven miles."

Although a much greater quantity of rain falls in mountainous districts
(within certain limits of elevation) than in the plains, yet a greater
quantity of rain falls at the surface of the ground than at an elevation
of a few hundred feet. Thus, from experiments which were carefully made
at York, it was ascertained that there fell eight and a half inches more
rain at the surface of the ground, in the course of twelve months, than
at the top of the Minster, which is 212 feet high. Similar results have
been obtained in many other places.

Some observations upon this point may also be found in the Report of the
Smithsonian Institution for 1855, at p. 210, given by Professor C. W.
Morris, of New York.

Again, the evaporation from the surface of water being much greater than
from the land, clouds that are wafted by the winds from the sea to the
land, condense their vapor upon the colder hills and mountain sides, and
yield rain, so that high lands near the sea or other large bodies of
water, from which the winds generally blow, have a greater proportion of
rainy days and a greater fall of rain than lands more remote from water.
The annual rain-fall in the lake districts in Cumberland County, in
England, sometimes amoun