becomes equal to their weight, when they continue to fall with an uniform velocity. A thunder-shower pours down much faster than a drizzling rain. A flake of snow, being perhaps nine times more expanded than water, descends thrice as slow. But hailstones are often several inches in length, and fall with a velocity of seventy feet in a second, or at the rate of about fifty miles an hour, and hence the destructive power of these missiles in stripping and tearing off fruit and foliage.
The annual quantity of rain decreases from the equator to the poles, as appears from the following table, which gives the name of the station, its latitude, and the average annual number of inches of rain:—
| Coast of Malabar | lat. 11° 30′ N. | 135½ inches. |
| At Grenada, Antilles | 12° | 126 |
| At Cape François, St. Domingo | 19° 46′ | 120 |
| At Calcutta | 22° 23′ | 81 |
| At Rome | 41° 54′ | 39 |
| In England | 50 to 55° | 31 |
| At St. Petersburgh | 59° 16′ | 16 |
| At Uleaborg | 65° 30′ | 13½ |
The number of rainy days, on the contrary, increases from the equator to the poles.
| From 12° to 43° N. lat.—the number of rainy days in the year amounts to | 78 |
| From 43° to 46° | 103 |
| From 46° to 50° | 134 |
| From 50° to 60° | 161 |
The greatest depth of rain which falls in the Indian ocean is during the time when the periodical winds, called the monsoons, change their direction. When the winds blow directly in-shore the rains are very abundant, so much so that, after a continuance of twenty-four hours, the surface of the sea has been covered with a stratum of fresh water, good enough for drinking, and ships have actually filled their casks from it. Colonel Sykes observes, that the deluge-like character of a monsoon in the Ghàts of Western India, is attested by the annual amount of 302¼ inches, at Malcolmpait, on the Mahabuleshwar Hills.
A great depth of rain in a short time has occasionally been witnessed in Europe. At Genoa, on the 25th of October, 1822, a depth of thirty inches of rain fell in one day. At Joyeuse, on the 9th of October, 1827, thirty-one inches of rain fell in twenty-two hours. Previous to the great floods of Moray, in 1829, the rain is described as
being so thick that the very air itself seemed to be descending in one mass of water upon the earth. Nothing could withstand it. The best finished windows were ineffectual against it, and every room exposed to the north-east was deluged. The smaller animals, the birds, and especially game, of all kinds, were destroyed in great numbers by the rain alone, and the mother partridge, with her brood and her mate, were found chilled to death amidst the drenching wet. It was also noticed, that, as soon as the flood touched the foundation of a dry stone wall, the sods on the top of it became as it were alive with mice, all forcing their way out to escape from the inundation which threatened their citadel; and in the stables, where the water was three feet deep, rats and moles were swimming about among the buildings.
Among the Andes it is said to rain perpetually; but in Peru it never rains, moisture being supplied during a part of the year by thick fogs, called garuas. In Egypt, and some parts of Arabia, it seldom rains at all, but the dews are heavy, and supply with moisture the few plants of the sandy regions.
There is a great variation in the quantity of