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More "Rainfall" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The rainfall on Mars is almost nil and the immense population (eight times larger than that of your Earth) is entirely dependent on the water supply from the melting Polar caps. Water on Mars is a most precious ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... conducted to every square foot of the field, without a drop being needlessly wasted. The system is an inheritance from the Moors, who were the best natural engineers the world has ever known. Water is scarce in Majorca, and thus every stream, spring, rainfall,—even the dew of heaven,—is utilized. Channels of masonry, often covered to prevent evaporation, descend from the mountains, branch into narrower veins, and visit every farm on the plain, whatever may be its ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... amiss with plumbing, furnace, anything. There was not even a soap factory within smelling distance, as Mrs. Townsend had vaguely surmised. She was sure that she had heard of houses being undesirable for such reasons, but there was no soap factory. They all sniffed and peeked; when the first rainfall came they looked at the ceiling, confidently expecting to see dark spots where the leaks had commenced, but there were none. They were forced to confess that their suspicions were allayed, that the house was perfect, even overshadowed with the mystery of a lower price than it ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... dreadful din, the rattle and bang and dirt and blood, the anguish of men and horses, the distorted and ghastly deaths, will pass them by. The whine of bullets, and the spiteful snarl of exploding shells seems as much an incident as the tin rainfall and the ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... 8,000,000 upon irrigation canals. Were it not for these irrigation canals, 2,000,000 acres in Scinde (northwestern India) would be a perpetual desert, for Scinde is almost wholly rainless. On the other hand, in a great part of India the rainfall is excessive. Some districts indeed are the wettest on the globe. In Assam, for example (which is also one of the hottest places in India), the rainfall is 600 inches yearly, and it has been 650. As a consequence rivers in ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various
... there are very many who would undoubtedly prefer the temperature enjoyed by those who live west of the mountains. Even where it is coldest, spring comes in February, and the country is so divided into districts of greater dryness or greater moisture, that a man can always choose whether to have a rainfall small or great. I hope I am not wearying you in dwelling on these points, for my only excuse in making these observations is, that I have learnt that the interior is to many on the island as much a terra incognita as it was to me. I can partly ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... the underground branches, and the so-called 'eyes' are really leaf-buds. It is by cuttings from these tubers, however, that the plant is mostly propagated. About three-fourths of the weight of the potato is water, and this may explain the injurious effect which excessive rainfall has on the crops. The disease which attacks the plant, and has been the cause of Irish famines, past and prospective, is a species of fungus, which first attacks and discolours the straws, and then spreads downwards ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... interest or amuse the traveller. The only town which is at all worthy of the name is Beaufort West, nestling amid its trees, a bright patch of colour amid the neutral tints of the hills and surrounding country. Here reside many patients suffering from phthisis, for the air is dry and warm and the rainfall phenomenally small. But after all what a place to die in! Rather a shorter and sweeter life in dear England than a cycle of ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... to be seen roofs of timber cut from trees growing there, which were of a size sufficient to cover the largest houses; and there were many other high trees, cultivated by man and bearing abundance of food for cattle. Moreover, the land reaped the benefit of the annual rainfall, not as now losing the water which flows off the bare earth into the sea, but, having an abundant supply in all places, and receiving it into herself and treasuring it up in the close clay soil, it let off into the hollows the streams which it absorbed ...
— Critias • Plato
... the moor and broke with a miserable cry against the walls. She hoped Mildred Caniper slept through a wailing that might have a personal note for her, and as she prepared to leave the room and listen on the landing, she thought she heard a new sound cutting through the swish of the rainfall and the shriek of wind. It was a smaller sound, as though a child were alone and crying in the night, and she leaned from her window to look into the garden. The rain wetted her hair and hands and neck, while she stared into varying depths of blackness—the ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... conditions of light, air, rainfall and temperature that make possible the maintenance of life in ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing
... sea, gradually evaporated, and what is known as Coahuila Valley was the bottom of this ancient upper gulf, and thus the land is now below the level of the sea. Between Coahuila Valley and the river there are many low, ashen-gray mountains standing in short ranges. The rainfall is so little that no perennial streams are formed. When a great rain comes it washes the mountain sides and gathers on its way a deluge of sand, which it spreads over the plain below, for the streams do not carry the sediment to the sea. So the mountains ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... thirty-six miles to the San Juan. In this valley, which has no flowing stream through it at present (and there is no certainty that it ever had), and which is without water, except in springs and pools, and has but a slight rainfall during the year, Mr. Mitchell was successfully cultivating, at the time of our visit, wheat, oats, maize, and the garden vegetables. The valley is uninhabited, except by the family of Mr. Mitchell, and a solitary man living four miles westward. Their nearest neighbors are ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... of a little town nestled down at the foot of some hills—a sleepy-hollow village. You remember the rainfall is very slight out there, and they depend much upon irrigation. But some enterprising citizens ran a pipe up the hills to a lake of clear, sweet water. As a result the town enjoyed a bountiful supply of water the year round without being dependent upon the ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... choice: it derived its volume from the highest known mountains, snow-capped peaks in fact, that reminded the spectator of far northern latitudes, and thus it was to a great extent independent of the variable local rainfall. ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... tales has been won from the sea by alluvial action. Its soil, enriched by yearly deposits of silt, yields abundantly without the aid of manure. A hothouse climate and regular rainfall made Bengal the predestined breeding-ground of mankind; the seat of an ancient and complex civilisation. But subsistence is too easily secured in those fertile plains. Malaria, due to the absence of subsoil ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... admitted that it is not infallible. It is suggested to you as another good technique. In order to help the subject relax, I have been using a phonograph record or tape that I recorded containing the continuous sound of various degrees of rain. One side has a half hour of very soft, light rainfall such as you have experienced in listening to rain falling on grass, canvas or a tent top. The other side or track contains a half hour of rain effects such as one would hear in a heavy downfall with loud splatterings of water on ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers
... were again beyond the line of rainfall, and once more toiling over the vast plains and endless ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... girl, always into every little mischief of snow or rainfall, flower, field, or woods or ice; but in spite of skates and sleds and tramps and all the west winds from Wachusett that blew through me, soul and body, I was not strong; and my father found it necessary to oversee my methods of studying. Incidentally, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... drop their anchors by the jetty, with news from the Old World and the commodities which the New World did not yield. It must, then, have been one of the most eventful places in the uncomfortable isthmus; but no place can be very pleasant which has an annual rainfall of 120 inches and a mean annual temperature of about 80 deg.. The country adjacent is indescribably beautiful; the river is clear and brilliant; the woods are gorgeous with many-coloured blossoms, and with birds and butterflies ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... geographical sense, from pole to pole, civilization might be practically as well as ideally one, though it may fairly be doubted whether in such a world civilization, such as we know, would arise; but with the present distribution of land and water, temperature and rainfall, and the complex of plants and animals which results from their interaction, unity among the phenomena of culture ceases to be practicable, and it has become hard for some (as we have seen) even to keep their faith in the ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... the creek was the only water supply for the army. The troops remained at this place until the afternoon of June 30th. The camp was in the valley of the creek, the ground is low and flat, and with the heavy rainfall every one was uncomfortable. Rations had to be brought from Siboney over a trail and did ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... at least, agriculture has been by far our most important industry. Of the two billion acres comprising continental United States, approximately half are under cultivation. In most sections of the country the quality of the soil is good, and rainfall is ample. We have long led the world in the value of farm crops grown. Our production of wheat, corn, oats, barley, rye, and dairy products totals an enormous figure. The steady enclosure of lands formerly used for grazing stock is restricting our production of food animals, but we are ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... it not be well if our children, without being taught to blame anyone for what is past, were taught something about what ought to be done now, what must be done soon, with the rainfall of these islands; and about other and kindred health-questions, on the solution of which depends, and will depend more and more, the life of millions? One would have thought that those public schools and colleges which desire to monopolise the education of the owners of the soil; of the ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... Javary River (the boundary between Brazil and Peru), is one of the most formidable and least known portions of the South American continent. It abounds with obstacles to exploration of the most overwhelming kind. Low, swampy, with a heavy rainfall, it is inundated annually, like most of the Amazon basin, and at time of high water the rivers know no limits. Lying, as it does, so near the equator, the heat is intense and constant, oppressive even to the native. The forest-growth—and ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... the lower gauge will collect most water. Does, then, rain condense in some appreciable quantity out of the lowest level? Again, during rain, is the air saturated completely, and what regulates the quality of rainfall, for rain sometimes falls in large drops and sometimes in minute particles? These were questions which Mr. Glaisher sought to ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... channels, or canyons as they are called, depends on the volume and continuity of the flowing stream, on the aridity of the country through which they are cut, and on the rock-formation. A fierce and continuous torrent, where the rainfall is at the minimum, will so speedily outrival the forces of erosion that the canyon will have vertical walls. An example is seen in those frequent "mud" canyons found in arid regions, where some brook, having its source in highlands, cuts a channel through ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... the reputation of being a very hot place this time of year. But last June must have been fairly damp if the meteorological statistics published by the 'Sudan Times' are correct. The rainfall during this month amounted to no less than 33.6 kilometres. No wonder a man I know there wrote to say the other day that sometimes the rain is too heavy for him to go on sleeping on the roof, and this in spite of a waterproof sheet. A life-belt would probably ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug. 22, 1917 • Various
... account of the destruction of Atlantis. "In one day and one fatal night," says Plato, "there came mighty earthquakes and inundations that ingulfed that warlike people." "In a single day all was lost," says the Aztec legend. And, instead of a rainfall of forty days and forty nights, as represented in the Bible, here we see "in a single day. . . even the mountains sunk into the water;" not only the land on which the people dwelt who were turned into ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... eastern district, marked by its equably distributed rainfall, and therefore naturally forest-clad, I have seen the trees diminish in number, give place to wide prairies, restrict their growth to the borders of streams, and then disappear from the boundless drier plains; have seen grassy plains change into a brown and sere desert—desert ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... to operate them. The denudation of the vast territories of the United States by the axe of emigration has already told in a marked degree upon the condition of its climate, and greatly affected its meteorology and rainfall; while the railroads, which have spread their Briarean arms over the whole country, by their immense consumption of wood for cross-ties, sills, fuel, snow-sheds, bridges, etc., have wellnigh stripped the land of its timber, leaving its bosom exposed to the biting blasts of winter and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... Two minutes later a deep-throated gurgle echoed in the cold morning air and huge bubble, then a geyser of water shot up into the air in a cloud of moisture and vapor spray. It fell back to the dry river bed, spread once again upon the gravel that had known only the gentle touch of rainfall for three-quarters of a century and then boiled and roiled in a gathering head downstream rolling loose boulders and logs in ...
— The Thirst Quenchers • Rick Raphael
... countered Jarvis. "The next expedition to this golf ball ought to carry an archeologist—and a philologist, too, as we found out later. But it's a devil of a job to estimate the age of anything here; things weather so slowly that most of the buildings might have been put up yesterday. No rainfall, no earthquakes, no vegetation is here to spread cracks with its roots—nothing. The only aging factors here are the erosion of the wind—and that's negligible in this atmosphere—and the cracks caused by changing temperature. And one other agent—meteorites. ...
— Valley of Dreams • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... triumphed again, and, in their turn, faded into the treeless expanse of the prairies. In the remaining portions were openings in the midst of the forested area, and then the grassy ocean of prairie that rolled to west and northwest, until it passed beyond the line of sufficient rainfall for agriculture without irrigation, into the semi-arid stretches ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... cousins assure us that their bright, clear winter, though so intensely cold, is not so trying as ours. This is to a great extent caused by the unusual moisture of the air in England. John Burroughs tells us that "the average rainfall in London is less than in New York, and yet it doubtless rains ten days in the former to one in the latter," which he explains by the fact that in England "it rains easily, ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... crude Tahoe basin ready for the reception of water. This came from the snow and rainfall on its large and mountainous drainage area, a hundred greater and lesser streams directly and indirectly discharging their ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... abundant, amounting annually to forty or fifty inches, ordinarily the air is dry and salubrious. This ample precipitation is usually well distributed throughout the growing season and is rarely insufficient or excessive. The summer rainfall comes largely in the form of local showers, scarcely ever attended by hail. Loudoun streams for the most part are pure and rapid, and there appears to be no ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... things which are vital to our happiness and prosperity can only be known by the rational use and subtle skill of our natural powers. We may trust the instrument with the prophecy of storm, or registry of rainfall; but the conditions of atmospheric change, on which depend the health of animals and fruitfulness of seeds, can only be discerned by the eye and ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... continuous rain suddenly grew heavier, and became a storm with a hoarse roar, which covered the moss with a thick carpet of yellow water that made rather a squashing sound under the feet. And the almost imperceptible murmur, the floating, ceaseless murmur gentle and sad, of this rainfall seemed like a low wail, and those leaves continually falling, seemed like tears, big tears shed by the tall mournful trees which were weeping, as it were, day and night over the close of the year, over the ending of warm dawns and soft twilights, over the ending of hot breezes ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... commercial and social organizations. It has every variety of climate from the tropical humidity along the southern coast to the frigid cold of the mountains; peaks of ice, reefs of coral, impenetrable jungles and bleak, treeless plains. One portion of its territory records the greatest rainfall of any spot on earth; another, of several hundred thousand square miles, is seldom watered with a drop of rain and is entirely dependent for moisture upon the melting snows of the mountains. Twelve thousands different ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... "Weather Bureau" will find it to be full of interest, as well as to offer an opportunity to render the camp a real service. He will make a weather vane, post a daily bulletin board, keep a record of temperature, measure velocity of wind and rainfall. ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... is one of the most faithful friends of man. It provides him with materials to build homes. It furnishes fuel. It aids agriculture by preventing floods and storing the surplus rainfall in the soil for the use of farm crops. It supplies the foundation for all our railroads. It is the producer of fertile soils. It gives employment to millions of workmen. It is a resource which bountifully repays kind treatment. It is the best organized feature of the plant world. The forest is ...
— The School Book of Forestry • Charles Lathrop Pack
... that Mount Atlas and those inhabited lands where there is a sufficient rainfall and every evidence of man's activity, the Province of Africa, the plateaux which are full of the memories of Rome, end abruptly towards the sun, and are bounded by a sort of cliff which falls sheer upon the desert. On the summit of this cliff I lay and looked ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... moist, as it is immediately after being dug or plowed. But this cannot always be arranged, neither can one always count upon a shower to moisten the soil just after the plants have been set. If advantage can be taken of an approaching rainfall, it should be done, because this is the ideal time for transplanting. It is much better than immediately after, which is perhaps next best. Transplanting in cloudy weather and toward evening is better than in sunny weather and in ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... of skilful exploitation, three years of high pressure passed quickly; years named by the promoters the period of development. In the Year One the very heavens smiled and the rainfall broke the record of the oldest inhabitant. Thus the region round about lost the word "arid" as a qualifying adjective, and the picturesque fictions of the prospectus makers were miraculously justified. In Year Two there was less rain, but still an abundant crop; and Jethro Simsby, drifting in from ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... influence of the sea, in causing a 'heavier rainfall, a more abundant vegetation, and a more plentiful supply of food,' with an easier and more reflective life than that of 'the arid wilderness of the interior,' cannot be, as is alleged, the cause of the germs of religion. [IBID. p. 463.] If ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... unflagging zeal and interest. It was really afflicting to turn his back upon the early Spanish settlers, the Jesuit missions, the grape and olive production, mining interests, earthquake statistics, the Chinese problem, annual rainfall on the great plateau, study of the Sierra Nevada range, and last, most alluring of all, that of the Santa Barbara Islands, described by a companion of Drake as densely populated by a white race with light hair and ruddy cheeks. When Sir Robert thought of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... speaks only of features to be found in a land like Babylonia. Sir William Willcocks thinks that the word translated "mist" would probably be better rendered "inundation," and that the writer is speaking of a country where inundation rather than rainfall was the support of life to the vegetable world. Genesis ii. 5 and ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... forest. As we drew nearer we could see white torrents dashing tempestuously down through green valleys, for Dominica has a too plenteous water-supply, since in some districts three hundred inches a year is the average rainfall. It rained seven times in the three hours that we passed on shore, but the showers were gentle ones, and we found generous shelter in the wonderful Botanical Garden, where we spent most of ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... restricted in time for any one year. Lowe's find was made in a year in which the summer rains were late, beginning in late July (Stebbins, 1951:137), whereas ours were made in a year having abundant and relatively early rainfall, beginning in late June. Microclimatic humidity is of extreme importance to both ...
— Natural History of the Salamander, Aneides hardii • Richard F. Johnston
... end of this street, formerly the Grand'Rue de Saumur, the words: "Here's golden weather," are passed from door to door; or each man calls to his neighbor: "It rains louis," knowing well what a sunbeam or the opportune rainfall ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... time some of the shrewdest highlanders devised an attachment to the curtain system by which the rainfall could also be distributed at the will of the operators. Then the rich Marsmen on the elevations said to the toilers: "Give us one-fifth more of your products, and we will give you your share ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... thirsty tide ran inland, And the salt waves drank of me, And I who was fresh as the rainfall Am bitter as ...
— Love Songs • Sara Teasdale
... about me desperately. To attempt the plain on foot meant death. What then was I to do? Glancing at the cliff I saw that there was a gully in it worn by thousands of years of rainfall, in which grew scanty bushes. Into this I ran, and finding it practicable though difficult, began to climb upwards, quite unnoticed by the Zulus who were all employed upon the further side. The end of it was that I reached ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... horse-tails, and reeds of all descriptions grow and thrive each year upon the ruins of their ancestors. The formation of such accumulations of decaying vegetation would only be possible where the physical conditions of the country allowed of an abundant rainfall, and depressions in the surface of the land to retain the moisture. Where extensive deforesting operations have taken place, peat-bogs have often been formed, and many of those in existence in Europe ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin
... sun-spots or the solar corona. Both seem to be produced by causes which lie within the sun; both undergo changes that are periodical and connected with each other. They exercise some influence upon the earth's magnetism, but whether this influence extends to terrestrial weather, to rainfall and storms, is ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... much as yield is boosted, the amino acid ratios change markedly, the content of scarce nutritional minerals drops massively, and the caloric content increases. In short, subsisting on irrigated commercially-grown potatoes, or on those grown on relatively infertile soils receiving abundant rainfall will make you fat and sick. ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... to the busy haunts of men, the dashing brook takes on a more ambitious air. Little by little it edges its narrow banks aside, drinks in the waters of tributaries, swells with the copious rainfall of the lower valley. From its ladder in the Alleghanies it catches a glimpse of the steeples of Johnstown, red with the glow of the setting sun. Again it spurts and spreads as if conscious of its new importance, and the once ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... the unlocking of the land and the developing of other resources of Victoria than the gold. It had surprised him when he travelled overland to Adelaide to see from Willunga 30 miles of enclosed and cultivated farms, and it surprised me to see sheepruns close to Melbourne. With a better rainfall and equally good soil, Victoria had neither the farms nor the vineyards nor the orchards nor the gardens that had sprung up under the 80-acre section and immigration systems of South Australia. It had been an outlying portion of New South Wales, neglected and exploited for pastoral ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... months for travelling, for the days are then generally bright and pleasant and the heat tempered by a cool breeze. On the coast during the summer rain and fogs prevail, and the sun is only occasionally visible, for there are on an average only sixty-six fine days throughout the year. In 1884, a rainfall of sixty-four inches was registered at Unalaska. The rain seldom pours down here, but falls in a steady drizzle from a hopelessly leaden sky, under which a grey and sodden landscape presents a picture of dreary desolation. But this damp cheerlessness has its advantages, for incessant ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... by southeast trade winds; annual rainfall averages 124 inches; rainy season from November to April, dry season from May to October; little seasonal ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... Dartmoor. But the cutting down of the trees has now rendered the great wet sponge of the Dartmoor region, from which the water was drawn all the year, no longer a sponge. It no longer "holds" the water of the rainfall, but in consequence of the removal of the forest and the digging of ditches the water quickly runs off the moor, and subsequently the whole countryside suffers from drought. This sort of thing has occurred wherever man has been sufficiently civilised and enterprising to commit the folly ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... fortunately for the history of the earth, that the water upon its surface fills its great concavities on the average to about four fifths of their total depth, leaving only about one fifth of the relief projecting above the ocean level. We have termed this arrangement fortunate, for it insures that rainfall visits almost all the land areas, and thereby makes those realms fit for the uses of life. If the ocean had only half its existing area, the lands would be so wide that only their fringes would be fertile. If it were one fifth greater ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... freshly painted and in perfect repair; and indeed the custodian said frankly enough, on reappearing, that they were merely built over the prisons on the site of the original towers. The storied stream of the Bacchiglione sweeps through the grounds, and now, swollen by the rainfall, it roared, a yellow torrent, under a corner of the prisons. The towers rise from masses of foliage, and form no unpleasing feature of what must be, in spite of Signor P——, a delightful Italian garden ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... neighbours, and made each other's wills. (I am to leave my money—I rely on you to tell Quadratus—to a curled darling here who hums Alexandrian dance tunes divinely). And we have discussed ad nauseam the rainfall in Upper Egypt, the number of legions on the Rhine and the ships in from Africa. That clever Spanish friend of yours—what was his name?—Martial—was quite right about our conversations. It is a pity he had to pay out his obol for ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... its hard foundation rock, which often in turn lay bare on the surface. The Athenian farmer had a sturdy struggle to win a scanty crop, and about the only products he could ever raise in abundance for export were olives (which seemed to thrive on scanty soil and scanty rainfall) and honey, the work of the ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, and studied it up the way I do. Page 442 gives all the hottest places on earth, with the record highest temperature of each, together with all the coldest places, where there is the greatest rainfall, and a chronological table of all the great famines, floods, storms, hot and cold spells the earth has ever known, from the time of Adam to the present day, with pictures of the Johnstown flood, and diagrams of Noah's ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... up till the night of the ninth day since their landing on the isle; then a heavy rainfall, filling the concavity of the boat's sail, enables them to replenish the beaker, with other ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... Northern Europe, almost the whole of Northern Asia or Siberia down to the Altai Mountains and Lake Baikal, together with the principal part of Alaska and British North America. All these added together form no unimportant portion of the earth, and the rainfall of these countries is enormous. It is not conceivable that the Arctic Sea of itself could contribute anything of importance to this rainfall; for, in the first place, it is for the most part covered with drift-ice, from which the evaporation is but ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... is not only larger than that even in our Atlantic and Gulf states, but it falls more exclusively during the summer season when its efficiency in crop production may be highest. South China has a rainfall of some 80 inches with little of it during the winter, while in our southern states the rainfall is nearer 60 inches with less than one-half of it between June and September. Along a line drawn from Lake Superior through central Texas the ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... district and town in the native state of Mysore, India. The district has an area of 4022 sq. m. and a population (1901) of 498,795. It is distinguished by its low rainfall and arid soil. It lies within the valley of the Vedavati or Hagari river, mostly dry in the hot season. Several parallel chains of hills, reaching an extreme height of 3800 ft., cross the district; otherwise ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... stiff breeze, therefore, raises millions of tons of water which operate hydraulic turbines as required. Incidentally these storage reservoirs, by increasing the surface exposed to evaporation and the consequent rainfall, have a very beneficial effect on the dry regions in the interior of the continent, and in some cases have almost superseded irrigation. The windmill and dynamo thus utilize bleak mountain-tops that, till their discovery, seemed to be but indifferent successes in Dame Nature's ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... to be a pretty sheet of water only slightly salt, a mile long and three quarters of a mile wide, separated from the ocean by a long narrow strip of sandy beach. No stream enters it, but it is the reservoir of the rainfall from the low-lying hills sloping down ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... Department John Gray, being clever and a hard worker, had risen rapidly, and had finally been appointed assistant to the ranking official whose duty it was to visit certain arid regions of Arizona and there seek by scientific methods to produce a sudden rainfall over parched areas, and so make the desert ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... distant, looking very much like a river. To the east and north the view was intercepted by long stony rises, apparently covered with spinifex. Large white gum clumps studded the plains in every direction. Evidences of heavy rainfall at certain times to be seen everywhere. Barometer 28.28; thermometer 72 degrees at 5 p.m.; latitude 26 degrees 13 minutes ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... beyond the Mississippi, stretching from Texas to North Dakota, and westward to the Rocky mountains, lies the plains country. This is a region of light rainfall, where the ground is clad with short grass, while cottonwood trees fringe the courses of the winding plains streams; streams that are alternately turbid torrents and mere dwindling threads of water. The great stretches of natural pasture are broken by gray sage-brush plains, and tracts ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... perform this service of keeping the streams ever-flowing, are the forests and the works of the beaver. Rainfall accumulates in the brooks. The brooks conduct the water to the rivers. If across a river there be a beaver-dam, the pond formed by it will be a reservoir which will catch and retain some of the water coming into it during rainy days, and will ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... any sound foundation for the three assumptions involved here? Firstly, that the evaporation from the Mediterranean, as a whole, is much greater than that from the Atlantic under corresponding parallels; secondly, that the rainfall over the Mediterranean makes up for evaporation less than it does over the Atlantic; and thirdly, supposing these two questions answered affirmatively: Are not these sources of loss in the Mediterranean fully covered by the prodigious quantity of fresh water which is poured into it by great rivers ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... Lahul, and Ladakh are outside the meteorological influences which affect the rest of the Indian Empire. The lofty ranges of the Himalaya interpose an almost insurmountable barrier between them and the clouds of the monsoon. The rainfall is extraordinarily small, and, considering the elevation of the inhabited parts, 10,000 to 14,000 feet, the snowfall there is not heavy. The air is intensely dry and clear, and the daily and seasonal range of temperature ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... discernible by the path, and its dripping from the eaves into a row of buckets and pans that had been placed under the walls of the cottage. For at Higher Crowstairs, as at all such elevated domiciles, the grand difficulty of housekeeping was an insufficiency of water; and a casual rainfall was utilized by turning out, as catchers, every utensil that the house contained. Some queer stories might be told of the contrivances for economy in suds and dishwaters that are absolutely necessitated in upland habitations during the droughts of ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... effective in beds or borders. They stand remarkably well both drought and excessive rainfall, and succeed in any common soil. Seeds sown early in spring produce flowers the same year. For spring bedding, sow in July; keep the young plants in a cold frame, and plant out in March or April. Choice sorts may be plentifully increased by cuttings taken in July or August. Flower ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink
... to the place called "The Three Bridges," where a rough wooden bridge crossed the torrent, they walked faster towards the stream, for they could hear it roaring in a perfect flood which shook the timbers of the bridge. The great rainfall was running from the hills through a thousand streamlets into the ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... to Graywater Park is destined to live in my memory for ever. The storm, of which the violet rainfall had been a prelude, gathered blackly over the hills. Ebon clouds lowered upon us as we came racing to the gates. Then the big car was spinning around the carriage sweep, amid a deathly stillness of Nature indescribably gloomy and ominous. I have said, a ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... physical appearance of the mysterious interior. Some thought it a vast level plain, where the few and sluggish rivers were lost in shallow lakes, to disappear by evaporation; others again, believed it to be an immense bed of sand where no rivers formed, and the thirsty sands absorbed the scanty rainfall; and many imagined an inland sea connected with the ocean by subterranean outlets: one and all ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... group. Not the largest, nor merely the smallest, Lakanaii is conceded by all to be the wildest, the most wildly beautiful, and, in its size, the richest of all the islands. Its sugar tonnage per acre is the highest, its mountain beef-cattle the fattest, its rainfall the most generous without ever being disastrous. It resembles Kauai in that it is the first-formed and therefore the oldest island, so that it had had time sufficient to break down its lava rock into the richest soil, and to erode the canyons between the ancient craters until they ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... Harrison. The thunder rites are to increase the rain fall, and the magic in such procedures is imitative; that is, a sound similar to thunder is produced, as primitive man believes thunder to cause the rainfall since it often precedes it. Miss Harrison[26] has given a picture of an early thunder god of the Chinese,—a deity surrounded by many objects, which he strikes to cause thunder. Rattles made of gourds are used ...
— The Sex Worship and Symbolism of Primitive Races - An Interpretation • Sanger Brown, II
... The climate of Backergunje is one of the healthiest in Eastern Bengal, owing to the strong south-west monsoon, which comes up directly from the Bay of Bengal, and keeps the atmosphere cool; but the heavy rainfall and consequent humidity of the atmosphere, combined with the use of bad water, are fruitful sources of disease. The average annual temperature varies from 78deg to 85deg F. The thermometer ranges from ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... character of the vegetation and other surface criteria show that the ground-water stands within ten feet of the surface over an area of 130,000 acres. The measurements made indicate that tens of thousands of acre feet of water are annually contributed by mountain streams and by rainfall to the underground reservoir, and that about the same quantity of ground- water is annually discharged into the atmosphere through the soil and the plants in the shallow water areas. It was estimated that in an area of 240,000 acres the ground-water ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... forests to rainfall has been studied by meteorologists, but little attention has been given by medical climatologists to the share which trees take in determining local variations of climate and the sanitary condition of dwellings, notwithstanding they play as ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... intelligence, told her much, and she knew the importance of the irrigation scheme he had embarked upon. Land in the arid belt could be obtained on favorable terms and, Fuller thought, be made as productive as that watered by the natural rainfall. It was, however, mainly because he had talked about finding her scapegrace brother employment on the work that Ida had made him take ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... Outline of Physiography. By H.R. Mill, D.SC, LL.D., Director of the British Rainfall Organisation. Second Edition. Revised and entirely reset. With 19 coloured Maps and 73 Illustrations in the text. Crown ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... been made certain that the boy had wandered this whole round, and that he had not left it by any one of the converging roads which he must have crossed. Nor could the direction of his wandering be ascertained. The hard, dry macadam road, washed clean by a recent rainfall, showed no trace of his light, infantile footprints. But sure it was that he had been on the road not one hour, but two or three at least, and that he had started out with an armful of his tiny belongings. Here they had found his small pocket-handkerchief, there ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... moderated by southeast trade winds; annual rainfall averages about 3 m; rainy season from November to April, dry season from May to ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... priest keeps the remainder. This ceremony is believed to secure the success of the harvest. Dulha Deo is the god who averts disease and accident, and the offering made to him should consist of a fowl or goat of reddish colour. Bhimsen is the deity of rainfall, and Dharti Mata or Mother Earth is considered to be the wife of Thakur Deo, and must also be propitiated for the success of the crops. The grain itself is worshipped at the threshing floor by sprinkling water and liquor on to it. Certain Hindu deities are also worshipped by the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... hours' notice enables all such factories to protect their product. Contractors for outdoor work make their estimates and contracts on the basis of weather forecasts, railroad companies provide against washouts, and irrigation companies control their output of water according to the expected rainfall." ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... military operations. Far enough south to enjoy plenty of bright sunshine, it is still some distance north of the tropics. Pleasant and regular breezes from the sea mitigate the discomfort which might otherwise prevail in a country almost surrounded by desert. The whole of the rainfall comes in the winter months. From about April to October, though dews are heavy, rain is unknown. But in the winter months, especially December and January, and to some extent February, the rainfall is intense, ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock
... traffic, the steamboat was utilized, but it did not entirely displace the earlier method. Difficulties often hindered the transportation of supplies. The summer of 1829 was extremely dry. The average monthly rainfall was less than an inch, and steamboat navigation was impossible. Even keelboats found difficulty in ascending the river; sixty days were spent by Lieutenant Reynolds in bringing up a load of supplies. A sand bar at Pine Bend was impassable, so half of the load was taken off and the rest ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... about 390 million gallons a day. Even if the demand on those days had risen as high as in June, which it did not, there would still have been an excess, but not a very safe one. Heavy storms shortly thereafter eased the situation, and rainfall since then has definitely broken the long drought pattern, returning stream and groundwater levels ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... characterized by broken and more or less rugged surface features. As a rule they are deficient in the amount of rainfall necessary to produce an abundance of the grains and similar food-stuffs, although this is by no means ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... importance of rain has led to various quasi-scientific and magical devices for securing it, and to the rise of professional rain makers. The methods commonly employed are mimic representations of rainfall or of a storm.[274] The Australian Arunta have a rain clan whose function is to bring the desired supply by nonsacred dancing festivals and sacred ceremonies. A more advanced method is to dip a stone, as rain-god, into a ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... Canadian Pacific Railway follows the river in its whole length, and thus renders it very accessible. Many other smaller streams and lakes are part of the Thompson water system, and afford good fishing. The river runs through the "dry belt," which is so called owing to the smallness of the rainfall, which only averages about 8in. in the year. It is from this cause that the banks of the rivers are very open and free from brush, which makes them easy to fish and to travel along; while, for the same reason, the country is generally open rolling hills, covered with grass or scanty pines, ...
— Fishing in British Columbia - With a Chapter on Tuna Fishing at Santa Catalina • Thomas Wilson Lambert
... extending from the twenty-five-hundred-foot level to the crest of the Sierra Nevada Mountains is a region so deficient in rainfall that, for the greater part, ordinary foodstuffs will not grow without irrigation; so farming must be confined mainly to the flood-plains of the rivers. Here and there considerable areas have been made fertile by capturing ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... physiognomies, are climatic results. We have rain enough, but not equability of temperature or moisture,—no steady, abundant supply of humidity in the air. In places in Great Britain it is said to rain on an average three days out of four the year through; yet the depth of rainfall is no greater than in this country, where it rains but the one day out of four. John Bull shows those three rainy days both in his temper and in his bodily habit; he is better for them in many ways, and perhaps not quite so good in a few others: they make him juicy and vascular, ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... apparent supposition that there is no such thing as winter at all. His notion of life is life in the open air, life in the sunshine. The peasant of the Cornice looks on with amazement at an Englishman tramping along in the rain. A little rainfall or a little snow keeps every labourer at home with a murmur of "cattivo Dio" between his teeth. A Scotchman or a Yorkshireman wraps his plaid around him and looks with contempt on an idle race who are "afraid of a sprinkle." But ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... we ascend—the most tropical trees and plants gradually disappearing, and more and more flowers of the temperate zone coming into evidence. And as we pierce farther into the mountains the climate becomes sensibly drier and the forest lighter. There is still a heavy enough rainfall to satisfy any ordinary plant or human being. But there is not the same deluge that descends upon the outer ridges. So the forest is not so dense. Frequently in its place social grasses clothe the mountain-sides; and yellow violets, primulas, anemones, ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... triangular roof of which no example will, ere long, be seen in Paris. This covering, warped by the extremes of the Paris climate, projected three feet over the roadway, as much to protect the threshold from the rainfall as to shelter the wall of a loft and its sill-less dormer-window. This upper story was built of planks, overlapping each other like slates, in order, no doubt, not to ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... expects, as I gather, a threefold result:—1st, an increased and better regulated supply of available water; 2nd, an increased rainfall; and, 3rd, a more equable climate, with more temperate summer heat and winter cold.[46] As to the first of these expectations, I suppose there can be no doubt that it is justified by facts; but it may not be unnecessary to guard against any confusion ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rainfall, everything is ideal for crops and for living conditions. In the matter of food, one needs in fact do practically nothing. Fruits of a variety ample to sustain life, grow wild in abundance. Vegetables planted are harvested seemingly without ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... decent comfort; to-day it needs the same farm of 5,000 acres to keep a single family in comfort." West of the great Drakenberg range it is an arid, or semi-arid, region. The reason is not so much that the rainfall is deficient, as that the rain comes at the wrong time, and is wasted. What is wanted is water-storage, with irrigation works to spread the water upon the land when it is needed by the farmer. Nothing short ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... current issues: deforestation; desertification; water-borne diseases prevalent natural hazards: rainfall has dropped by 30% in the last thirty years international agreements: party to - Biodiversity, Climate Change, Endangered Species, Law of the Sea, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution; signed, but ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... in the sketch herewith. The funnel, A, overlaps and rests on the body, B, and discharges into the tube, C, the area of which is one-tenth that of the top of the funnel. The depth of the water in C is thus ten times the actual rainfall, so that by measuring it with a stick marked off in tenths of an inch, we obtain the result in hundredths of ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... pleased that the water god has made his appearance on these shores as there has been a terrible drought here for sometime, and we are sadly in need of a rainfall to moisten the parched lips of our soil and I hope the great water god of your country will deign to ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... example, with assiduity, and even suggested a possible connection between sun-spots and terrestrial weather. So far, then, he would not be surprised on hearing the announcement of Professor Lockyer's recent paper before the Royal Society on the connection between sun-spots and the rainfall in India. But when the paper goes on to speak of the actual chemical nature of the sun-spots, as tested by a spectroscope; to tell of a "cool" stage when the vapor of iron furnishes chief spectrum lines, and of a "hot" stage when the iron has presumably been dissociated ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... the Gilgamesh Epic heavy rain in the evening begins the flood and is followed at dawn by a thunderstorm and hurricane. But in itself the term abubu implies flood, which could take place through a rise of the rivers unaccompanied by heavy local rain. The annual rainfall in Babylonia to-day is on an average only about 8 in., and there have been years in succession when the total rainfall has not exceeded 4 in.; and yet the abubu is not ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King
... which visited us the day we crossed the Makata proved the last of the Masika season. As the first rainfall which we had experienced occurred on the 23rd March, and the last on the 30th April, its duration was thirty-nine days. The seers of Bagamoyo had delivered their vaticinations concerning this same Masika with solemnity. "For forty ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... have their immediate source in the rainfall. By the heat of the sun water is evaporated from the reservoir of the ocean and from moist surfaces everywhere. Mingled as vapor with the air, it is carried by the winds over sea and land, and condensed it returns to ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... Sahara depends on pastoral nomadism, fishing, and phosphate mining as the principal sources of income for the population. The territory lacks sufficient rainfall for sustainable agricultural production, and most of the food for the urban population must be imported. All trade and other economic activities are controlled by the Moroccan Government. Moroccan energy interests in 2001 signed contracts to explore ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... is made from durum wheat, according to Saunders a variety of hard, spring wheat. It is best grown in regions of restricted rainfall. Durum and other varieties of hard spring wheat grown under similar conditions, differ but little in general chemical composition, except that the gluten of durum appears to have a different percentage of ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder
... reaches its highest perfection as a member of the vegetable kingdom, in India and Ceylon, in a climate of extreme heat and extreme rainfall and moisture, and in a very rich soil; and the remark is often heard from Indian planters that "tea and malarious fevers flourish together." Experience has shown however that the tea plant possesses a wonderful power of accomodation to adverse conditions. ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... with the inhabitants of the drier and hotter upper districts as far as Bhamo, where there is a great infusion of other types of the Tibeto-Burman family. North of the apex of the delta and the boundary between the deltaic and inland tracts, the rainfall gradually lessens as far as Minbu, where what was formerly called the rainless zone commences and extends as far as Katha. The rainfall in the coast districts varies from about 200 in. in the Arakan ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... on perfectly level ground, are soon trod on and broken in by cattle; in summer they are choked up with dust and rubbish; and, the loose earth having all been thrown up together in a heap on one side, there is no barrier to the water which in eveiy great rainfall flows in and obliterates the kennel, drowning ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... the roof, he was by no means particular about it. In this part of Burma the rainfall is very small, the inundations being the effect of heavy rains in the distant hill country which, as they come down, raise the level of the rivers, in some cases, as much as eighteen feet, and ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... catbird on the hedge as we came down toward the station. She—we call her so, for there was unmistakable ladyhood in her delicately tailored trimness—she bickered at us in a cheerful way, on top of those bushes which were so loaded with the night's rainfall that they shone a blurred cobweb gray in the lifting light. Her eye was also dark and polished and lucid, like a bead of ink. It also had the same effect of tribulation on our spirit. Neither the catbird nor the frog, we said to ourself, would have tormented their souls trying to "invent" ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... the north-west coast; but this has not been so much the case latterly. Numbers of tourists come from Australia during the summer months. Compared to the larger island, Tasmania is well watered, and the rainfall is very much greater. The climate has often been compared to that of England, without its damps and fogs, but the lightness and clearness of the atmosphere rather resemble that of the South of France or Italy, and supply that gentle exhilaration ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton
... an apple pie," said Tom Slater—"it's better cold than hot. There's a hundred inches of rainfall at Omar in summer. We'll all have web ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... that Ireland as a country is cursed with defective natural drainage. The fall of the greater rivers is so slight that they meander hither and thither in "S's," as they say here, and only require a little surplus on the average rainfall to overflow the more valuable land. And it is astonishing how quickly good land left untilled reverts to its primeval condition, or, in the expressive language of the country, "goes back to bog." This has been shown ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... it may be possible, and necessary, when heavy rain occurs, to allow the diluted sewage to escape into the sea at any stage of the tide; and, while it is easy to contend that it will not then be more impure than storm water which is permitted to be discharged into inland streams during heavy rainfall, the aforesaid sentimentalists may conjure up many possibilities of serious results. As far as possible the records should indicate the course taken by floats starting from the outfall, at high water, and at each regular hour afterwards on the ebb tide, as well as at low ...
— The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns • Henry C. Adams
... embedded fragments of siliceous sandstone, used for millstones and constructional purposes; the subsoil is limestone. The Yeres, a tributary of the Seine, and the Grand Morin and Petit Morin, tributaries of the Marne, are the chief rivers, but the region is not abundantly watered and the rainfall is only between 20 and 24 in. The Brie is famous for its grain and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... forbidden. Of late years large numbers of "concrete" or "cement" houses have been built. Our grandfathers would have opened their eyes wide at the suggestion of a house built of sand, and would have felt anxious at every rainfall lest their homes should suddenly melt away. Even after thousands of concrete buildings were in use, many people still feared that they would not stand the cold winters and hot summers of the United States; ...
— Diggers in the Earth • Eva March Tappan
... aspect of the clouds in England was different from ours,—soft, fleecy, vapory, indistinguishable,—never the firm, compact, sharply, defined, deeply dyed masses and fragments so common in our own sky. It rains easily but slowly. The average rainfall of London is less than that of New York, and yet it doubtless rains ten days in the former to one in the latter. Storms accompanied with thunder are rare; while the crashing, wrenching, explosive thunder-gusts ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... for the introduction of many, but not all, of these Malayan and Australasian species. The climate is healthy, the temperature varying from 75 deg. to 84 deg. F. The prevailing wind is the S.E. trade, which blows the greater part of the year. The rainfall in the wet season is heavy, but not excessive, and during the dry season the ground is refreshed with occasional showers and heavy dews. Malarial fever is not prevalent, and it is interesting to note that there are no swamps or standing ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... direction parallel to the railroad, throws off to the eastward spurs which, to repeat Mr. Bryce's expression, "break down in tremendous precipices," forming a succession of terraces. The gorges between these determine the direction of the river-beds whereby the rainfall pours down to the sea; and the general easterly course thus imparted is maintained and continued by the lie of the valleys, separating the successive hills through which the territory of Natal gradually rises to the northward. These various streams find their way sooner or later to the Tugela, ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... Lord of the lightning and of the clouds, the Lord of the highlands and of the lowlands, and the Lord of the rainfall and of the drought, the Lord of good seasons and of bad, of rich harvests and of scanty. They, like all things, obey Thine everlasting laws; and of them, whatever may befal, poor purblind man can say in faith and hope—"It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... to the maintenance of the water supply. The rainfall from the roofs of the temples and houses was conducted to the reservoirs, and these stores were never drawn upon on ordinary occasions, the town being supplied with water brought by aqueducts from long distances among the hills. Here and there openings were cut in the rock ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... should have a good supply of moisture. Planted on banks and in hard places about buildings, it may suffer in this respect. The land should be so graded that the rainfall will not run off. In orchard conditions, the moisture is conserved by the addition of humus to the land, and by thorough judicious tillage; and in dry regions it is ...
— The Apple-Tree - The Open Country Books—No. 1 • L. H. Bailey
... the rainfall, which had been slightly under half an inch in a few spots, but over it in many others; and while we stood talking in the renewed sunlight, more telegrams were brought to Jode, saying that there was no moisture anywhere, and simultaneously with these, riders dashed ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... Superior lay a second great sheet—an early Huron—(Lake Lahontan, the geologists call it) almost as big, and equally of fresh water. By-and-by—the precise dates are necessarily indefinite—some change in the rainfall, unregistered by any contemporary 'New York Herald,' made the waters of these big lakes shrink and evaporate. Lake Lahontan shrank away like Alice in Wonderland, till there was absolutely nothing left of it; Lake Bonneville shrank till it attained the diminished size ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... storm's over an' the sun is out, an' here we are loafin' in here yet. Vamoose, boys! scatter!" and they all piled out into a fresh and made-over world. Everything was washed clean by the torrential rainfall, and, strange to say, comparatively little damage had been done by the terrific wind. The ranchmen set about repairing whatever had been destroyed, and the three comrades walked toward the ranchhouse, discussing ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... dwarfed eucalyptus trees growing in very poor soil and under harsh rainfall conditions. Usually many stems emerging from the ground, creating a low thicket. Maoriland: Lawson's name for New Zealand marine, dead: see dead mooching: wandering idly, not going anywhere in particular mug: gullible person, ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... for a leather writing-case they are making especially for my tour, I wheel on to Coventry, having the company, of Mr. Priest, Jr., of the tricycle works, as far as Stonehouse. Between Birmingham and Coventry the recent rainfall has evidently been less, and I mentally note this fifteen-mile stretch of road as the finest traversed since leaving Liverpool, both for width and smoothness of surface, it being a veritable boulevard. Arriving at Coventry I call on "Brother Sturmey, " a gentleman well and favorably ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... wist the pain it should take us to come hither," pursued Isabel, apparently quite careless about interrupting the spiritual labours of her sister nun, "methinks I had prayed my Lord the King to choose another messenger. By the rainfall of late, divers streams have so bisched [overflowed] their banks, that me verily counted my mule had been swept away, not once ne twice. It waked my laughter to see how our steward, that rade with us, strave and struggled with ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... neighbouring department of Vendee. It divides the region drained by the Sevre Nantaise and the Thouet (both affluents of the Loire) in the north from the basins of the Sevre Niortaise and the Charente in the south. The climate is mild, the annual temperature at Niort being 54 deg. Fahr., and the rainfall nearly 25 in. The winters are colder in the Gatine, the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... railroad near New Orleans for 26 years. The stringers were chosen at random to determine the general condition of the trestle. The timber had been exposed to the weather and subjected to heavy train service from the time it was treated until it was tested. The annual rainfall at New Orleans is about 60 in., and the humidity of the air is high. In spite of these conditions, there was no appearance of decay on any of the specimens tested. The specifications under which the timber was treated ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 - Tests of Creosoted Timber, Paper No. 1168 • W. B. Gregory
... preservation and indicated by their intactness that the flesh had probably been picked from them by vultures as none was broken; but the pieces of equipment bore out the suggestion of their great age. In this protected spot where there were no frosts and evidently but little rainfall, the bones might have lain for ages without disintegrating, for there were here no other forces to scatter ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... with the carrion half way between them. Then one or two more traps and they reached home, arriving at the camp just as darkness and a heavy rainfall began. ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... November to February, hot and dry from March to May, and temperate and wet from June to October. The rainy season reaches its maximum in July and August, when the rains are constant and very heavy. The total rainfall has been as high as 114 inches ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... at Rothamsted in 1879, and witnessed the injurious effect of an excessive rainfall, in washing out of the soil nitrate of soda and salts of ammonia, which were sown with the wheat in the autumn. It was an exceedingly wet season, and the loss of nitrates on all the different plots was very great. But where the nitrates or salts of ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... Taking an average rainfall of 30 inches per annum, and granting that only 10 inches percolate into the rock, the supply of water stored up by the Permian and New Red formations was estimated by the committee to amount to 140,800,000 gallons per square mile per year. ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... tore themselves apart into great gorges and left their pathetic little bridges alone and deserted out in the middle of the gulf. That was the famous May twelfth, 1912, when Ancon recorded the greatest rainfall in her history,—7.23 inches, virtually all within three hours. Three of us were ready to surrender and swim home through it. But there was "the Admiral" to consider. He was dressed clear to his scarf-pin—and Panama tailors tear horrible holes in a police salary. So we waited and dodged ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... waterless village with the great city which was called the healthiest in the world. In his opinion the physical change had resulted from the destruction of forests, which brought with it a diminution of the rainfall. "At Cotrone," he said, "we have practically no rain. A shower now and then, but never a wholesome downpour." He had no doubt that, in ancient times, all the hills of the coast were wooded, as Sila still is, and all the rivers abundantly supplied with water. To-day there was scarce a healthy man ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... meteorological instruments, entrusted him, when only twelve years old, with the keeping of a set of observations which showed not only the barometric and thermometric readings twice a day, and the highest and lowest temperatures, but also the rainfall, the state of the sky, the form of the clouds, and the force and direction of the wind. The elaborately arranged columns, full of symbols and figures, look very quaint in the careful boyish handwriting, and must have absorbed ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... temperature. A boy in charge of the "Weather Bureau" will find it to be full of interest, as well as to offer an opportunity to render the camp a real service. He will make a weather vane, post a daily bulletin board, keep a record of temperature, measure velocity of wind and rainfall. ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... which were of a size sufficient to cover the largest houses; and there were many other high trees, cultivated by man and bearing abundance of food for cattle. Moreover, the land reaped the benefit of the annual rainfall, not as now losing the water which flows off the bare earth into the sea, but, having an abundant supply in all places, and receiving it into herself and treasuring it up in the close clay soil, it let off into ...
— Critias • Plato
... Flour is made from durum wheat, according to Saunders a variety of hard, spring wheat. It is best grown in regions of restricted rainfall. Durum and other varieties of hard spring wheat grown under similar conditions, differ but little in general chemical composition, except that the gluten of durum appears to have a different percentage of gliadin and glutenin, and the flour has a more decided yellow color. Durum ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder
... fragments of siliceous sandstone, used for millstones and constructional purposes; the subsoil is limestone. The Yeres, a tributary of the Seine, and the Grand Morin and Petit Morin, tributaries of the Marne, are the chief rivers, but the region is not abundantly watered and the rainfall is only between 20 and 24 in. The Brie is famous for its grain and its dairy products, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... railroad, throws off to the eastward spurs which, to repeat Mr. Bryce's expression, "break down in tremendous precipices," forming a succession of terraces. The gorges between these determine the direction of the river-beds whereby the rainfall pours down to the sea; and the general easterly course thus imparted is maintained and continued by the lie of the valleys, separating the successive hills through which the territory of Natal gradually rises to the northward. These various streams find ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... species, when made on perfectly level ground, are soon trod on and broken in by cattle; in summer they are choked up with dust and rubbish; and, the loose earth having all been thrown up together in a heap on one side, there is no barrier to the water which in eveiy great rainfall flows in and obliterates the kennel, drowning or driving out ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... the place which has the greatest measured rainfall on the globe, became a popular station, and the discovery of coal there, and at several other places in the hills, attracted to it many visitors, some of whom published accounts of the country and people. The first detailed description ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... swollen portions of the underground branches, and the so-called 'eyes' are really leaf-buds. It is by cuttings from these tubers, however, that the plant is mostly propagated. About three-fourths of the weight of the potato is water, and this may explain the injurious effect which excessive rainfall has on the crops. The disease which attacks the plant, and has been the cause of Irish famines, past and prospective, is a species of fungus, which first attacks and discolours the straws, and then spreads downwards to the tubers, increasing the quantity of water in them, reducing ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... seriously, still looking down. "No; I was wondering if the rainfall had been as light in the mountains as it has been in the valley, and how the water-supply will hold out through the summer ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... his astronomical observations were copied out at this time, and minute records taken of the rainfall. Books saved up against a rainy day were read in the middle of the "Masika" and ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... of Mr. Banerjea's tales has been won from the sea by alluvial action. Its soil, enriched by yearly deposits of silt, yields abundantly without the aid of manure. A hothouse climate and regular rainfall made Bengal the predestined breeding-ground of mankind; the seat of an ancient and complex civilisation. But subsistence is too easily secured in those fertile plains. Malaria, due to the absence of subsoil drainage, is ubiquitous, and ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... "The enormous rainfall of the last few weeks has swollen all the mountain lakes," said the host, vivaciously, "and the road to Remiremont is under water, so that it would be impossible ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... command of the whole firmament, so swiftly had its violence of contagion spread. Here, verily, was a rainfall on a great scale, and as it settled to business a sort of darkness spread over the land. I must seek shelter, and I would find it on the levels rather than ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... result that when the storm had subsided the spell was broken and he said "So long," and rode south, followed by Buck and Red. As they swept out of sight behind a grove Red turned in his saddle and waved his hat. Buck discussed with assiduity the prospects of a rainfall and was very cheerful about the recovery of the stolen cattle. Red could see a tall, broad-shouldered man standing with his feet spread far apart, swinging a Colt's .45, and Hopalong swore at everything under the sun. Dust arose in streaming clouds far ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... poison is produced below the surface by decaying vegetable matter in low and dank parts during the more inactive but still warm and sunny winter season and during the hot months preceding the summer rainfall. Upon the first rains the malarial poison escapes through the then softened crust in the shape of vapoury miasms. This happens during the night, after the surface of the earth has been cooled off. Those miasms are dissipated or neutralised by ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... to the upper port gallery, and concentrated himself on observation. A certain change in the desert was becoming noticeable, as the air-liner flung herself at high speed into the south-east. At times there must be a little rainfall here, or else some hidden source of water, for a scrub, of dwarf acacia, of camel-grass, and tamarisk had begun ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... mud, obtrudes on the left the village of Elchingen, now in the hands of the French. Its white- walled monastery, its bridge over the Danube, recently broken by the irresistible NEY, wear a desolated look, and the stream, which is swollen by the rainfall and rasped by the storm, seems ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... southeast trade winds; annual rainfall averages 124 inches; rainy season from November to April, dry season from May to October; little seasonal ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... about a hundred acres of new ground annually. The land, rich and rolling, was so varied in its qualities and requirements that a general failure of crops was never experienced—the bottoms would thrive in dry seasons, the hill crops in wet, and moderation in rainfall would prosper them all. The small farmers who continued to dwell nearby included Dabney at first in their rustic social functions; but when he carried twenty of his slaves to a house-raising and kept his own hands gloved while directing their work, the beneficiary and his fellows were less grateful ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... on the socks"; then off I went to see about the others. Met the colonel. Offered him the freedom of our large marquee for his men to sleep in or shelter as they pleased. He was most grateful, so in the midst of a dreadful rainfall about two hundred of these fellows found shelter. All were hungry. We had five boxes of biscuits for our own use, and fifteen gallons of gingerbeer. Mr. Young, of the S.A.G.M., who was a great help to me, took a bucket of the gingerbeer and ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... Europe, almost the whole of Northern Asia or Siberia down to the Altai Mountains and Lake Baikal, together with the principal part of Alaska and British North America. All these added together form no unimportant portion of the earth, and the rainfall of these countries is enormous. It is not conceivable that the Arctic Sea of itself could contribute anything of importance to this rainfall; for, in the first place, it is for the most part covered ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... climate of Backergunje is one of the healthiest in Eastern Bengal, owing to the strong south-west monsoon, which comes up directly from the Bay of Bengal, and keeps the atmosphere cool; but the heavy rainfall and consequent humidity of the atmosphere, combined with the use of bad water, are fruitful sources of disease. The average annual temperature varies from 78deg to 85deg F. The thermometer ranges from ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... deciduous forests triumphed again, and, in their turn, faded into the treeless expanse of the prairies. In the remaining portions were openings in the midst of the forested area, and then the grassy ocean of prairie that rolled to west and northwest, until it passed beyond the line of sufficient rainfall for agriculture without irrigation, into the semi-arid stretches of ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... As the rainfall in Alaska is usually very large, it naturally follows that an umbrella is a convenient companion. A gossamer for a lady and a mackintosh for a gentleman, and heavy shoes, and coarse, warm and comfortable clothing for both ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... ground is moist, as it is immediately after being dug or plowed. But this cannot always be arranged, neither can one always count upon a shower to moisten the soil just after the plants have been set. If advantage can be taken of an approaching rainfall, it should be done, because this is the ideal time for transplanting. It is much better than immediately after, which is perhaps next best. Transplanting in cloudy weather and toward evening is better than in sunny weather ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... the progress of South Africa in coming years, the limitations as well as the advantages of the country must be kept in view. More than half of it, including the entire western half, is deficient in rainfall and can never be the home of a dense white population. Some mining will develop on those broad, dry plains and sandy wastes; some agriculture where irrigation is possible; and great wool-growing wherever ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... Coahuila Valley was the bottom of this ancient upper gulf, and thus the land is now below the level of the sea. Between Coahuila Valley and the river there are many low, ashen-gray mountains standing in short ranges. The rainfall is so little that no perennial streams are formed. When a great rain comes it washes the mountain sides and gathers on its way a deluge of sand, which it spreads over the plain below, for the streams do not carry the sediment to the sea. So the mountains are ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... arable land of the Territory means, of course, a large increase in the productive resources of that section. Other canals may possibly do as much. The work of sinking artesian wells is also going on there extensively, while the project of constructing great storage reservoirs, in which the rainfall of the wet season may be collected and from thence gradually distributed through the dry season, is already in serious contemplation by private enterprise. Modern scientific irrigation has already accomplished wonders ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various
... be obtained. The next most vital problem was moisture for the crops. Most of the rainfall came in the growing season, but in dry years it was inadequate and much of it wasted on packed ground. To produce crops in the arid or semi-arid regions, out-of-season moisture—heavy snows and rains—must be conserved. There must be a ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... them on silvery pinions Echoing softly their laughter; around them the wantoning dolphins Sighed as they plunged, full of love; and the great sea-horses which bore them Curved up their crests in their pride to the delicate arms of the maidens, Pawing the spray into gems, till a fiery rainfall, unharming, Sparkled and gleamed on the limbs of the nymphs, and the coils of the mermen. Onward they went in their joy, bathed round with the fiery coolness, Needing nor sun nor moon, self-lighted, immortal: but others, Pitiful, floated in silence ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... improvements. Farmers are divided in opinion as to whether the riding plow reduces the labor cost. The lister, recently patented, throws the earth into a ridge and enables the farmer to plant without previously breaking the soil. It is valuable in the dry regions of the West, but useless where the rainfall is great, as the soil must there be broken up anyhow. There have been 920 corn gatherers patented, of which only one is considered a success, and most farmers reject it on account of the waste. The general verdict is that the labor of producing corn has ...
— If Not Silver, What? • John W. Bookwalter
... the Cascade Mountains on the west, the Coeur d'Alene and Bitter Root Mountains on the east, the Okanozan range to the north, and the Blue Mountains to the south. The valley floor was basalt, from the lava flow of volcanoes in ages past. The rainfall was slight except in the foot-hills of the mountains. The Columbia River, making a prodigious and meandering curve, bordered on three sides what was known as the Bend country. South of this vast area, across the range, began ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... extend its work into the heart of the South so as to become of national consequence, but it has, at the rate of forty to one hundred sixty miles annually, invaded all of the cotton district except that of the Carolinas and Virginia. The damage it does, varies according to the rainfall and the harshness of the winter, increasing with the former and decreasing with the latter. At times the damage has been to the extent of a loss of 50 per cent. of the crop, estimated at 400,000 bales of cotton annually, about 4,500,000 bales since the invasion ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... their patience under many privations, and their industry have been rewarded. They grow maize, sugar, tobacco, and vegetables, but their cattle seem to be the most thriving and successful part of their business. In some seasons want of water, and in every season the heavy rainfall at the period when the grain is coming to maturity, are serious drawbacks to agriculture in this district. On the whole, it may be said that Queensland is far more adapted to be a pastoral than an ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... the crude Tahoe basin ready for the reception of water. This came from the snow and rainfall on its large and mountainous drainage area, a hundred greater and lesser streams directly and indirectly discharging their flow ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... central and north coast district there are several large private subdivisions of excellent dairy land. In the tableland districts, where the rainfall averages 30 in. per annum, dairy farming has taken firm hold. Private owners are also cutting up tracts of splendid partially-improved land, and offering it at from $19.20 to $28.80 per ...
— Australia The Dairy Country • Australia Department of External Affairs
... rewarded with the command of a Division again proving that age should not be regarded as a deterrent for promotion if ability is conspicuous. He was only forty when commanding a Brigade. During February and March the Battalion suffered great discomfort, not to speak of hardships. The rainfall was unusually heavy and the country all mud. Difficulty was experienced in getting up supplies. And every day and every hour the Turks were tightening their hold on Kut, so gallantly defended by General Townshend and his brave division. For in reading the history of the ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... fire, Aristides makes the coffee, and in a little while we have a banquet fit for kings—or for the poor things in every grade below them that serve kings, political or financial or industrial. There is always water, for it is brought down from the snow-fields of the mountains—there is not much rainfall—and carried in little concrete channels along the road—side from village to village, something like those conduits the Italian peasants use to bring down the water from the Maritime Alps to their fields and orchards; and you hear the soft gurgle of it the whole night ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... have been setting from the coast inwards, and that, so far as such things can be referred to physical causes, this particular movement in Australia would seem to have been initiated by the sea acting through an abundant rainfall and a consequent abundant supply ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... river-plantations, exceptionally favorable for cotton-growing. On the Horton place especially "the stand" had been pronounced perfect, there being scarcely a gap, scarcely a stalk missing from the mile-long rows of the broad fields. Then, the rainfall had not been so profuse as to develop foliage at the bolls' expense, as was too frequently the case on the river. Yet it had been plenteous enough to keep off the "rust," from which the dryer upland plantations were now suffering. Neither ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... population. The interior, except for occasional oases, is a desert, inhabited only by wandering tribes. Along the southern and western coasts, between the mountains and the sea, the soil is generally fertile, the climate temperate, and the rainfall sufficient. Here the chief ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... every direction. As no surface drainage could be led into them, and as there is no trace on the ground of a raised ditch discharging into them, they must have been filled, if used as reservoirs, from the rain which fell within the line that circumscribes them. The mean annual rainfall (for over seventeen years) at Verde, a few miles farther northward in the same valley, is 11.44 inches, with a maximum annual fall of 27.27 inches and a minimum of 4.80 inches. The mean annual fall ...
— Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... the big rivers flow is very flat, and is therefore liable to great floods. Australia has the reputation of being a very dry country; as a matter of fact, the rainfall over one-third of its area is greater than that of England. In most places the rainfall is, however, badly distributed. After long spells of very dry weather there will come fierce storms, during which the rain sometimes ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... But the summer rainfall on the high fjelds is always heavy, and even after all the snow of the year has melted, an immense amount of water has to drain away to the lowlands, and so to the sea. At first it collects in the tarns which fill the hollows of the mountain plateaux, but these, overflowing, ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... sea, the rainfall in the winter is abundant; but the climate of Upper Egypt is all but rainless, only a few slight showers falling throughout the year. This dryness of the Egyptian air is what has preserved through so many ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... three or four months, or settling here permanently. People can safely sleep out of doors for six months of the year. The plains are from 4,000 to 6,000 feet high, and some of the settled "parks," or mountain valleys, are from 8,000 to 10,000. The air, besides being much rarefied, is very dry. The rainfall is far below the average, dews are rare, and fogs nearly unknown. The sunshine is bright and almost constant, and three-fourths of the days are cloudless. The milk, beef, and bread are good. The climate is neither so hot in summer nor so cold in winter as that of the States, and when the days ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... scene of the next attempt. There were good reasons for the choice: it derived its volume from the highest known mountains, snow-capped peaks in fact, that reminded the spectator of far northern latitudes, and thus it was to a great extent independent of the variable local rainfall. ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... experience. This appears in the fact that the various ideas which are necessary to interpret the new problem are to be selected out of larger complexes of past experience. For example, in a lesson whose problem is to account for the lack of rainfall in the Sahara desert, the pupil may have a complex of experiences regarding the position of the desert. Out of this mass of experience he must, however, select the one feature—its position in relation to the equator. In the same way, he may have a whole body of experience regarding the winds ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... All that matters is adaptation. The germ of malaria renders whole tracts of the earth uninhabitable to those whom we consider representative of the higher culture. In other parts an alteration of the rainfall may crush out a civilisation, and leave a handful of nomadic tribes as the sole denizens of lands where once a lofty civilisation flourished. Throughout the whole of nature there is never the slightest indication that forces operate with the slightest reference ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... most south-westerly State in the American Union; occupies the Pacific seaboard between Oregon and Mexico, and is bounded landward by Nevada and Arizona. It is the second largest State, larger by a quarter than the United Kingdom. In the N. the rainfall is excessive, and winters severe; in the S. there is little rain, and a delightful climate. Wheat is the most important product; the grape and all manner of fruits grow luxuriantly. Mineral wealth is great: it is the foremost State for gold and quicksilver; lead, silver, copper, iron, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... April rainfall would turn the dry ditch into an open sewer—a vast trough of muddy water—in which draggled women would paddle for submerged household gods. Many would prefer to tramp back to the town at night and sleep in their own shrapnel-riddled ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... that followed was quick and abbreviated to terms of understanding between two men who knew. Grass was the subject. Mention was made of the winter rainfall and of the chance for late spring rains to come. Names occurred, such as the Little Coyote and Los Cuatos creeks, the Yolo and the Miramar hills, the Big Basin, Round Valley, and the San Anselmo and Los Banos ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... walls. She hoped Mildred Caniper slept through a wailing that might have a personal note for her, and as she prepared to leave the room and listen on the landing, she thought she heard a new sound cutting through the swish of the rainfall and the shriek of wind. It was a smaller sound, as though a child were alone and crying in the night, and she leaned from her window to look into the garden. The rain wetted her hair and hands and neck, while ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... lay a second great sheet—an early Huron—(Lake Lahontan, the geologists call it) almost as big, and equally of fresh water. By-and-by—the precise dates are necessarily indefinite—some change in the rainfall, unregistered by any contemporary 'New York Herald,' made the waters of these big lakes shrink and evaporate. Lake Lahontan shrank away like Alice in Wonderland, till there was absolutely nothing left of ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... where any organic impurity which the water may carry in is soon oxidised and rendered harmless. Those who have scampered like myself over the downs of Hants and Wilts will remember the scarcity of water in these regions. In fact, the rainfall, instead of washing the surface and collecting in streams, sinks into the fissured chalk and percolates through it. When this formation is suitably tapped, we obtain water of exceeding briskness and purity. A large glass globe, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... undoubtedly reaches its highest perfection as a member of the vegetable kingdom, in India and Ceylon, in a climate of extreme heat and extreme rainfall and moisture, and in a very rich soil; and the remark is often heard from Indian planters that "tea and malarious fevers flourish together." Experience has shown however that the tea plant possesses a wonderful power of accomodation to adverse conditions. In China and in the United states, it has ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... we should expect to see in Africa the human drama play itself out much as in other lands, and such has actually been the fact. At the same time we must expect peculiarities arising from the physiography of the land—its climate, its rainfall, its deserts, and the ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... abundant rainfall," says the Department of Agriculture, "stimulate a luxuriant forest development throughout the country which in turn provides ample fountain heads for rivers. The rivers and streams run in all directions, affording opportunity for irrigation all over the country. The insular position of ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... farther west, perhaps to Kansas. A wide belt stretching westward from the one-hundredth meridian to the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains is arid land. It includes parts of Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. Although the rainfall here is mostly too light to grow corn and wheat without irrigation, these dry plains have sufficient growth to support great herds of sheep and cattle, and supply us with a large part of our beef. Cattle by the hundred thousand feed on these ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... the midst of the babel, and smiled as much as her anxiety would allow, at the merriment. And as it was in this stage, so the other stages were counterparts. And the gay tunes and merry laughter floated back all along the cavalcade, mingling harmoniously with the rainfall. ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... that where an opposite result is desired, primitive logic enjoins the weather-doctor to observe precisely opposite rules of conduct. In the tropical island of Java, where the rich vegetation attests the abundance of the rainfall, ceremonies for the making of rain are rare, but ceremonies for the prevention of it are not uncommon. When a man is about to give a great feast in the rainy season and has invited many people, he goes to a weather-doctor and asks him to "prop up the clouds that ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... schedule lists of the larger springs and request the owners or occupiers of the land to inform them from time to time whether there is a decrease in the flow. Stored water is almost as valuable as earth in a cycle of deficient rainfall, and the loss of any of our fountains and springs is a local ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... necessarily absorb immense quantities, and after taking it up, must send it forth into the sea in the form of rivers. If we deny that the continent absorbs the excess of water from the ocean, and admit that all springs derive their supply from the rainfall which filters drop by drop into mountain reservoirs, we do so, bowing rather to the superior authority of those who hold this opinion, than because our reason ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... vegetation, clouds, and all the color and beauty of nature of more favored districts. Not so. Water is scarce, it is true, and springs few and far between, and the vegetation is in proportion; for what little there is is mostly dependent on the annual rainfall, never excessive, at the best, yet always sufficient for the brush covering the ground, and the yuccas towering up many feet here and there. But color, beautiful, brilliant, magnificent color, is here ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... conceived that to be your taste. And again he used them as breastworks in foraging at the boardinghouse. Firing at you a volley of figures concerning the weight of a lineal foot of bar-iron 5 x 2 3/4 inches, and the average annual rainfall at Fort Snelling, Minn., he would transfix with his fork the best piece of chicken on the dish while you were trying to rally sufficiently to ask him weakly why does a hen ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... Prado, gardens were planted and constantly watered, and while the hitherto barren, dust-laden places began to blossom as the rose, the air itself became softer, less trying, and, perhaps, there is rather more uncertainty about the weather, or at any rate a greater rainfall. At one time there were but two rainy seasons—spring and autumn—and never a cloud in between. For about three days clouds would be gathering gradually in the sky, beginning with one literally "no bigger than a man's hand." Whenever there was a cloud, you might be certain ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... as another good technique. In order to help the subject relax, I have been using a phonograph record or tape that I recorded containing the continuous sound of various degrees of rain. One side has a half hour of very soft, light rainfall such as you have experienced in listening to rain falling on grass, canvas or a tent top. The other side or track contains a half hour of rain effects such as one would hear in a heavy downfall with ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers
... among the common people, who are extremely tenacious of such things, of any great rainfall, nor is there any mention of floods in the ancient manuscripts, nor is there any larger fall of rain now than was formerly the case. But the Lake itself tells us how it was formed, or as nearly as we shall ever know, and these facts ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... water for the cattle that was mostly needed, since the occasional, slight rainfall was now sufficient to provide for the grass, though some water was used to irrigate certain sections that would be called "meadows" in the east. This drinking water was conducted to distant troughs by pipes running from the ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... one of the most faithful friends of man. It provides him with materials to build homes. It furnishes fuel. It aids agriculture by preventing floods and storing the surplus rainfall in the soil for the use of farm crops. It supplies the foundation for all our railroads. It is the producer of fertile soils. It gives employment to millions of workmen. It is a resource which bountifully repays kind treatment. It is the best organized feature of the plant world. ...
— The School Book of Forestry • Charles Lathrop Pack
... immediate source in the rainfall. By the heat of the sun water is evaporated from the reservoir of the ocean and from moist surfaces everywhere. Mingled as vapor with the air, it is carried by the winds over sea and land, and condensed it returns ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... swarming multitudes of this great wild ox of the West. Under the blue sky the yellow prairie spread out in endless expanse; across it the horseman might steer for days and weeks through a landscape almost as unbroken as the ocean. It was a region of light rainfall; the rivers ran in great curves through beds of quicksand, which usually contained only trickling pools of water, but in times of freshet would in a moment fill from bank to bank with boiling muddy torrents. Hither and thither across these plains ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... and irregular distribution of the species be interpreted as a result of the desiccation of the Range, then instead of increasing as it does in individuals toward the south where the rainfall is less, it should diminish. If, then, the peculiar distribution of sequoia has not been governed by superior conditions of soil as to fertility or moisture, by what ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... their extensive forests to good account in the markets of the world. White pine seems to be the principal wood thus used. Norway and Sweden have been shipping timber for some centuries, and yet seem to need no laws to restrain the denudation of their hills; certainly not to encourage rainfall. Bergen has 88.13 inches per annum, which is just double that of Philadelphia, and four inches greater than that of Sitka, where the people say it is always raining. Of course these figures are small when compared to spots on the Himalayas, where Hooker observed a fall of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... that it might, or might not, reveal; he was proud to believe that he knew a thorough-bred, without a pedigree for confirmation. And when Sunday morning dawned and the floodlike downpour had subsided to a gray and steady rainfall, even Caleb, none too weatherwise, knew that it had come to "stay fer a spell." He knew that the boy who had come marching down the valley road, two days before, was going to stay, too, if it lay within his ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... in a channel from Dartmoor. But the cutting down of the trees has now rendered the great wet sponge of the Dartmoor region, from which the water was drawn all the year, no longer a sponge. It no longer "holds" the water of the rainfall, but in consequence of the removal of the forest and the digging of ditches the water quickly runs off the moor, and subsequently the whole countryside suffers from drought. This sort of thing has occurred wherever man has been sufficiently civilised and enterprising to commit the ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... thrive each year upon the ruins of their ancestors. The formation of such accumulations of decaying vegetation would only be possible where the physical conditions of the country allowed of an abundant rainfall, and depressions in the surface of the land to retain the moisture. Where extensive deforesting operations have taken place, peat-bogs have often been formed, and many of those in existence in Europe undoubtedly owe their formation to that destruction of forests ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin
... an additional work for the farm engines now in operation, accomplished with but little increased expense. A single fact may illustrate the irrigating capacity of Mr. Mechi's machinery. It throws upon a field a quantity of the fertilising fluid equal to one inch of rainfall at a time, or 100 tons per imperial acre. And, as a proof of how deep it penetrates, the drains run freely with it, thus showing conclusively that the subsoil has been well saturated, a point of vital importance to ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... marine, moderated by southeast trade winds; annual rainfall averages about 3 m; rainy season from November to April, dry season from May to ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... iris-pseudacorus, the sweep of the winds through its bulrushes and canebreaks, the glory of colour in the blue stars of its veronica, the bright rosy spikes of its epilobium. The river seemed always happy, even when the great rainfall of autumn churned it into froth and the lightnings ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... or channels start, which connecting with other bayous passing Richmond, Louisiana, enter the Mississippi at Carthage twenty-five or thirty miles above Grand Gulf. The Mississippi levee cuts the supply of water off from these bayous or channels, but all the rainfall behind the levee, at these points, is carried through these same channels to the river below. In case of a crevasse in this vicinity, the water escaping would find its outlet through the same channels. The dredges and laborers from the canal ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... hardy perennials; most effective in beds or borders. They stand remarkably well both drought and excessive rainfall, and succeed in any common soil. Seeds sown early in spring produce flowers the same year. For spring bedding, sow in July; keep the young plants in a cold frame, and plant out in March or April. Choice sorts may be plentifully increased ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink
... the south of Spain is almost wholly agrarian. From the Tagus to the Mediterranean stretches a mountainous region of low rainfall, intersected by several series of broad river-valleys which, under irrigation, are enormously productive of rice, oranges, and, in the higher altitudes, of wheat. In the dry hills grow grapes, olives and almonds. A country on the whole much like southern California. Under the Moors ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... as she was, so as to keep warm by mere company; while Eustace, still holding her hand, just to assure her of his presence, placed himself in such an attitude, leaning before her and above her, as to protect her as far as possible from the drizzling rainfall through the gap in front of them. There they sat till morning, talking gradually of many things, and growing more and more confidential, in spite of cold and wet, as they learnt more and more, with each passing hour, of each other's standpoint. ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... consequence might be foreseen. The load of vapor is in great part precipitated, dense clouds are formed, their particles coalesce to rain-drops, which descend daily in gushes so profuse that the word "torrential" is used to express the copiousness of the rainfall. I could show you this chilling by expansion, and also the ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... last respect the worst sinners are the larger varieties, and in point of filling quality, medium and small-sized varieties will, in nearly all cases, be found to have the greatest range of adaptability. The larger varieties are more likely to succeed on rich lands where the rainfall, particularly during the summer months, ...
— The Pecan and its Culture • H. Harold Hume
... they tell of a little town nestled down at the foot of some hills—a sleepy-hollow village. You remember the rainfall is very slight out there, and they depend much upon irrigation. But some enterprising citizens ran a pipe up the hills to a lake of clear, sweet water. As a result the town enjoyed a bountiful supply of water the year round without being dependent ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... well pleased that the water god has made his appearance on these shores as there has been a terrible drought here for sometime, and we are sadly in need of a rainfall to moisten the parched lips of our soil and I hope the great water god of your country ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... those rare mornings in the rainy season when there was a suspicion of spring in the air, and after a night of rainfall the sun broke through fleecy clouds with little islets of blue sky—when Prosper Riggs and his mother drove into Wild Cat camp. An expression of cheerfulness was on the faces of his old comrades. For it had been recognized that, after all, "Prossy" had a perfect ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... that these risks of uncertain rates of evaporation is desirable, is as absurd as to assume that the risks of rainfall are desirable for plant life. As the plants of a certain climate have become adapted to the amount of soil moisture which the climate is likely to provide, so the egg has by natural selection been ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... their yellow pressed brick, and iron girders, and high, hospitable stoops, and projecting water-spouts—which all spoke to me of the dear, brave, good old Holland I had never seen. It is true that these eaves-troughs, which in the Netherlands discharged the rainfall into the canal in front of the houses, here poured their contents upon the middle of the sidewalks, and New England carpers have made much of this. But to me there was always a pretty pathos in this resolution to reproduce, here in the wilderness, ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... can of food is emptied toss it on the fire and burn it out, then drop it in a sink hole that you have dug for slops and unburnable trash, and cover it with earth or ashes so no mosquitoes can breed in it after a rainfall. ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... to keep my seat in the saddle. On the way to town the girls asked me if I expected to return to the farm that evening. I said that I did not, to which they replied that they were glad because they wanted a horse apiece coming back, so that they could have a race. There had been a heavy rainfall, and in front of the blacksmith shop at the edge of town was a large mud-puddle in which a hog was wallowing as we came up. Disturbed at our approach, the big animal arose from the puddle, splashing mud and water, and making considerable noise. The gentle horse on which the girls ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole
... winter the winds are sometimes piercingly keen. No trees will grow unless protected from this wind; yet the tropical vegetation that flourishes in the open air conclusively proves the remarkable equability of the climate; while rainfall, which is seldom excessive, is quickly absorbed or evaporated. To the lover of history, legend, and romance the Scillies are a rich mine of treasure, and their inaccessibility keeps them immune from the spoiling tendencies of fashion. At one time this inaccessibility was far ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... controlling climate as long as there was any to control. Sending forth electromagnetic waves it massed and directed the atmospheric pressure, sending heat waves here, cold ones there, thus causing droughts and rainfall at will. But now, as with the case of most of the other machines, Omega needed it no longer. He kept it because it linked him with the joy of the past. Besides, there was the mind-control appliance by whose aid man's mind might visit other worlds. This was done ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow
... luxuriant growth; or the earth may be iron and the heavens brass, with scarcely a green blade to be seen. The light flying showers that usually occur in July do not render watering unnecessary; in fact, a heavy soaking of a crop after a moderate rainfall is a valuable aid to its growth, for it requires a long-continued heavy downpour to penetrate ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... for California horticulture as any other one nurseryman, and he took me up into his orchard on the hill side overlooking his nursery where no drops of rain had fallen between the months of March and October when I was there and where they only have 22 inches of rainfall anyway, and I found growing there this collection of pistache trees which we had sent him about ten years ago. The nuts are borne towards the ends of the branches. The tree is able to withstand any amount of drought and as I sat there ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... at least, in which the denuding the country of its forests has lessened the rainfall: in certain conditions of the atmosphere every tree is a great condenser of moisture, as I had just observed in the case of the old elm; little showers are generated in their branches, and in the aggregate the amount of water precipitated in this way is considerable. Of a foggy summer morning ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... salvation shall draw from it with joy. It is as impossible that a heart which desires Jesus Christ shall not have Him, as it is that lungs dilated shall not fill with air, or as it is that an empty vessel put out in a rainfall shall not be replenished. He does not hide Himself, but He desires to be found. May I say that as a mother will sometimes pretend to her child to hide, that the child's delight may be the greater in searching and in finding, so Christ has gone away from our sight in ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... degrees. The period from April to November, when the south-east trade winds prevail, called the dry or east monsoon, is slightly warmer than the remaining six months which make up the rainy season. The heaviest rainfall is in the months of December, January, and February. The chief characteristic of the climate of Java is, therefore, not so much its heat as its equability: it is rarely wet all day long even in the wet season, and at least one shower may be expected ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... Ceylon the greater number of the ancient dams or bunds are now in ruins, and this can occasion but little surprise, considering the meteorological condition of these countries. In Ceylon, for instance, the whole rainfall of the year occurs within a period of six to eight weeks, and often amounts to as much as 12 in. in the twenty-four hours, and has been known, comparatively recently, to reach nearly 19 in., the latter an amount only 2 in. or 3 in. less than the average rainfall of Lincolnshire for the whole ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... north and in the far south begin to melt as the warmth from the rest of the world is conducted to the polar regions. And the heat from the interior of the earth makes all the parts of the earth's surface warmer. Winds almost stop blowing. Ocean currents stop flowing. The land receives less rainfall, until finally everything turns to a desert; almost the only rain is on the ocean. Animals die even before the rivers dry up, for the flesh eaters are not able to see their prey, and since, without light, all green things die, the animals that live on plants soon ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... wore away, and when daylight came it was still raining. But the wind had gone down and the sky looked as if the rainfall ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... of forests to rainfall has been studied by meteorologists, but little attention has been given by medical climatologists to the share which trees take in determining local variations of climate and the sanitary condition of dwellings, notwithstanding they play as important a part as differences of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... secure the success of the harvest. Dulha Deo is the god who averts disease and accident, and the offering made to him should consist of a fowl or goat of reddish colour. Bhimsen is the deity of rainfall, and Dharti Mata or Mother Earth is considered to be the wife of Thakur Deo, and must also be propitiated for the success of the crops. The grain itself is worshipped at the threshing floor by sprinkling water and liquor on to it. Certain Hindu deities are also worshipped ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... the north and south respectively. Generally, the thermometer is low for the latitude, though perhaps it is more correct to say that the Gulf Stream raises the temperature of the west coast of Europe above the average. The mean rainfall in the north is 16, in the south 70 inches, with variations in other parts. Typhoons blow in the south between ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... effect upon the waters of the Nile. The magnificent chain of mountains from which they flow is not a simple line of abrupt sides, but the precipitous slopes are the walls of a vast plateau, that receives a prodigious rainfall in June, July, August, and until the middle of September, the entire drainage of which is carried away by the above-named channels to inundate ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... possible. Every stiff breeze, therefore, raises millions of tons of water which operate hydraulic turbines as required. Incidentally these storage reservoirs, by increasing the surface exposed to evaporation and the consequent rainfall, have a very beneficial effect on the dry regions in the interior of the continent, and in some cases have almost superseded irrigation. The windmill and dynamo thus utilize bleak mountain-tops that, till their discovery, seemed to be but indifferent successes in Dame Nature's domain. The ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... solid and unadorned of vine or flower. A row of bright tin buckets hung along the picket fence that separated the yard from the store enclosure, and rain-barrels sat under the two front gutters with stolid practicability, in contrast to the usual relegation of such store-houses of the rainfall to the back of the house and the planting of ferns and water plants under the front sprouts, as was the custom from the beginning of time in Sweetbriar. Mrs. Rucker in a clean print dress and with ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... he said, "is plotted the deficiency in rainfall for the past year, from every reporting station in the United States. These red lines divide the country into areas of equal deficiency. The area most affected, as you can see, is longer east and west, than it is north and south. It is worst in the east, in fact ...
— The Great Drought • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... precipitates the precious blue dye, which is boiled, drained, cut in small cakes, and dried. From first to last the growth and the manufacture are even more precarious than most tropical crops. An even rainfall, rigorous weeding, the most careful superintendence of the chemical processes, and conscientious packing, are necessary. One good crop in three years will pay where the factory is not burdened by severe interest on capital; one every other year will pay very well. Personally ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... moved on toward Plock, the wind had already somewhat dried the road, and although it rained often, yet the rainfall, as is usual in the spring, consisted of larger drops, but warm, and of short duration. The furrows upon the fields glistened with water. The moist, sweet smell from the cultivated fields was wafted by the strong wind. The marshes were ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... and that the only other remaining rich lands—the swamp areas—will be occupied by the increase of ten years in our population. It has seemed to me that it is high time we came back to these partially worn-out Eastern lands and begin to build them up. Here the rainfall is abundant, the climate is fine, and the markets are the best, and there are millions of acres of these Eastern lands that lie as nicely for farming as the Western prairies. Why should they not be built up into ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins
... possibilities of Queensland, and an endeavour is made to show that there is a good opening for intending settlers in this branch of agriculture, but the general remarks respecting the climate, rainfall, soils, &c., will be of equal interest to any who wish to take up any other branch, such as general farming, dairying, &c. The Queensland Department of Agriculture has received a number of inquiries from time to time, and from various parts of the world, respecting ...
— Fruits of Queensland • Albert Benson
... the land and the developing of other resources of Victoria than the gold. It had surprised him when he travelled overland to Adelaide to see from Willunga 30 miles of enclosed and cultivated farms, and it surprised me to see sheepruns close to Melbourne. With a better rainfall and equally good soil, Victoria had neither the farms nor the vineyards nor the orchards nor the gardens that had sprung up under the 80-acre section and immigration systems of South Australia. It had been an outlying portion of New South ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... plenty of bright sunshine, it is still some distance north of the tropics. Pleasant and regular breezes from the sea mitigate the discomfort which might otherwise prevail in a country almost surrounded by desert. The whole of the rainfall comes in the winter months. From about April to October, though dews are heavy, rain is unknown. But in the winter months, especially December and January, and to some extent February, the rainfall is intense, and the country on the Plains and ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock
... Luzon. However, scientific observations have been made and recorded for a series of about ten years at Baguio, Benguet Province, at an altitude of 4,777 feet, and it is from the published data there gathered that the following facts are gained.[7] The temperature and rainfall are the average means deduced ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... "The climate, the rainfall, everything is ideal for crops and for living conditions. In the matter of food, one needs in fact do practically nothing. Fruits of a variety ample to sustain life, grow wild in abundance. Vegetables planted are harvested seemingly without blight or hazard of any kind. No ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... Tai Dsung had a dream. He saw a giant enter his room, who pleaded with hardly restrained tears: "Save me, O Emperor! Because of my own accord I diminished the rainfall, the Lord of the Heavens, in his anger, has commanded that We Dschong behead me to-morrow at noon. If you will only prevent We Dschong from falling asleep at that time, and pray that I may be saved, misfortune once more may pass ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... fidelity of detail which hurts the eye in the modern work, and refuses to be softened by any effect of the mellowing London air. It looks out over the scurry of cabs, the ponderous tread of omnibuses, the rainfall patter of human feet, as inexorably latter-day as anything in the Strand. It is only an instance of the constant futility of the restoration which, in a world so violent or merely wearing as ours, must still ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... contents. This residue is described as 'permanent tissue.' The observations were carried out through two growing seasons—1894-5—which were very different in character, the former being rainy with low temperature, the latter being abnormal in the opposite direction, i.e. minimum rainfall and maximum sunshine. The barley selected for observation was that of two experimental plots of the Royal Agricultural Society's farm, one (No. 1) remaining permanently unmanured, and showing minimum yield, the other (No. 6) receiving such fertilising ...
— Researches on Cellulose - 1895-1900 • C. F. Cross
... combined causes is shown in the character of the seasons. Fogs are almost unknown; frosts occur not until the middle of October; ice rarely forms of a sufficient thickness to be gathered; snows are light, seldom remaining on the ground more than two or three days. The average rainfall is about fifty- three inches, which is pretty uniformly distributed throughout the year. The climate is eminently ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... enjoyed by those who live west of the mountains. Even where it is coldest, spring comes in February, and the country is so divided into districts of greater dryness or greater moisture, that a man can always choose whether to have a rainfall small or great. I hope I am not wearying you in dwelling on these points, for my only excuse in making these observations is, that I have learnt that the interior is to many on the island as much a terra incognita as it was to me. I can partly ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... bullocks, and in one field we saw a man who had just come to his little field with an enormous load borne upon his easel-like packing appliance. Thus we find the Koreans also adopting the rice crop, which yields heavily under conditions of abundant water; we find them supplementing a heavy summer rainfall with water from their hills, and bringing to their fields besides both green herbage for humus and organic matter, and ashes derived from the fuel coming also from the hills, in these ways making good the ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... the answer, "but costly. If big reservoirs are built on all the headwater streams so that—no matter what the rainfall may be—only a constant amount is allowed to flow out of these reservoirs, then floods will be avoided, there will be plenty of water for irrigation, and a steady depth of water in the channel will extend navigation that is now stopped during ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... of 'The Military Soudan' the land becomes more fruitful. The tributaries of the Nile multiply the areas of riparian fertility. A considerable rainfall, increasing as the Equator is approached, enables the intervening spaces to support vegetation and consequently human life. The greater part of the country is feverish and unhealthy, nor can Europeans long ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... Climate, including those conditions of light, air, rainfall and temperature that make possible the maintenance of ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing
... mountainous districts. Malarial fever prevails in the valley of the Maritza, in the low-lying regions of the Black Sea coast, and even in the upland plain of Sofia, owing to neglect of drainage. The mean annual rainfall is 25-59 in. (Gabrovo, 41-73; ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... vast, it embraces so wide a range, that one really hardly knows where it begins or ends. Phillip's knowledge was universal. He understood all about astronomy, and had prepared an abstract of figures proving the connection of sun-spots, rainfall, and the price of wheat. Algebra was the easiest and at the same time the most accurate mode of conducting the intricate calculations arising out of the complicated question of food—of flesh formers and heat generators—that is to say, how much a sheep increased in weight by gnawing ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... of about 390 million gallons a day. Even if the demand on those days had risen as high as in June, which it did not, there would still have been an excess, but not a very safe one. Heavy storms shortly thereafter eased the situation, and rainfall since then has definitely broken the long drought pattern, returning stream and ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... roof, he was by no means particular about it. In this part of Burma the rainfall is very small, the inundations being the effect of heavy rains in the distant hill country which, as they come down, raise the level of the rivers, in some cases, as much as eighteen feet, ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... that if you had a copy of Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, and studied it up the way I do. Page 442 gives all the hottest places on earth, with the record highest temperature of each, together with all the coldest places, where there is the greatest rainfall, and a chronological table of all the great famines, floods, storms, hot and cold spells the earth has ever known, from the time of Adam to the present day, with pictures of the Johnstown flood, and ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... extends north to south between the two polar circles and east to west between America and Asia over an expanse of 145 degrees of longitude. It's the most tranquil of the seas; its currents are wide and slow-moving, its tides moderate, its rainfall abundant. And this was the ocean that I was first destined to cross under these strangest ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... out the cat and wound the clock and was about to ascend to his chamber (now, alas, reoccupied by Mrs. Daney, upon whom the news of Nan's departure had descended like a gentle rainfall over a hitherto arid district) when he heard slow footsteps on his front veranda. Upon going to the door and peering out, he was amazed to see Donald McKaye ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... half the earth removed and the other half made up of vegetable matter, ashes, road dirt, and such manure from the barn and stable as you can spare. Having done this make an arrangement about each tree that will retain all the rainfall which comes down to the earth beneath and collect as much more from the open spaces about as possible. 2. Your old and decaying trees may be saved if decay has not gone too far. But the remedy is an heroic one, ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
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