When showers come to gladden the hearts of our farmers, and to provide food for the people, they might sometimes give a thought to the Ocean—to the manner in which, with Sun and Air as helpers, he sends aloft millions of tons of water, for the use of those on land.
For “unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.”
There are parts of the world where rains, like winds, come at regular and almost unfailing dates. In disappointing years, when they fail, an Empire may be disorganised in consequence.
But in our British Isles no such regularity has sway; and a pleasing uncertainty prevails about Weather in general. This gives scope for something to talk about, and something to grumble at. What the average Briton would do without these perpetual possibilities is a serious question.
No doubt our Weather is a very uncertain quantity to be reckoned with. Yet it may be that we are unfair to our friend the Ocean, who does so much for us in the weather-line—ever at work as he is, night and day, sending upward supplies of water, bringing to our shore stores of tropical heat, softening the westerly breezes which excel.
Is English weather really so bad as is popularly supposed? There are climates and climates in the world; some worse, some better. May it not be that ours really is, in many respects, not worse but better? Perhaps a slight digression here will be pardoned, for the sake of Old Ocean’s good name, in his dealings with the British Isles.
Foggy days, dull and damp days, are apt to make a more lasting impression upon some people’s memories than sunny days. One reason for the generally mournful idea of British weather may be due to the fact that foreigners, Frenchmen especially, are by nature more light-hearted than Englishmen, and that they keep chiefly in mind their sunny days, while we perhaps keep chiefly in mind our dull days.
To gain a fair estimate of average British weather, long and careful observation is necessary. There is absolutely no safe criterion, save that of record-keeping. Not many people have the perseverance to do this for any length of time, and few non-scientific people have the fairness of mind and judgment to do it dependably.
It is in my power to tell of a record which has been kept, steadily, carefully, perseveringly, by an English lady during many years, and to give the results at which she arrived. Without being strictly scientific she was—I have to say “was,” since she has passed from our midst—accurate, regular, conscientious, and fair-minded. For all this I can vouch from personal knowledge. At the same time that she kept records of the weather, she registered day by day the readings of her thermometer and the daily amount of rainfall. With the two latter we are not now concerned.
Her method as to weather-registration was as follows. Four marks were used: X for a thoroughly fine day; V for a day in which fine and dull mingled, but in which the fine predominated; I for a day in which again the two mingled, but in which the dull or rain had the best of the matter; and O for a day which could only be described as decidedly bad.