"Rainfall" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which crosses the island intercepts the northeast trade winds which blow from the Atlantic and deprives them of their moisture. The consequence of this is that the rainfall in the northern portion of the island is very copious. It also has the effect of reducing the rain south of the mountains, so that there is a prevalence of droughts in that section and agriculture can be advantageously carried on by irrigation. Up to the present, however, this work of irrigation ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... rising. We can stand another nine or ten inches, but a foot would be serious. Of course, the break that flooded out Jackson's Hollow, where your place was, Anton, is relieving the pressure a little. We've been lucky here. I haven't heard of any loss of life so far. It's a nasty flood, but when the rainfall last week was reported as being so heavy, I knew ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... elevation, then 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 solve, ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... latter disease to be of microbic origin, the result of climatic conditions, and divides the island of Hawaii into two districts, in one of which the rainfall is 150 inches annually, where bighead is very prevalent, and the second of which is dry and rarely visited by rain, where the disease is unknown. Removal of animals from the wet to the dry district is followed by immediate improvement and frequently ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... night before that memorable struggle. It had been a wet and stormy night; at dawn the rain was falling heavily, the ground was saturated, and the troops in the rival armies were thoroughly drenched. About nine o'clock it cleared up, but on account of the rainfall no movement was made by the French till towards ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... looking over some tricycle works, and calling 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
... 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 and ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... were so accustomed to the eruptions of Vesuvius that they gave no thought to the possibility of their city being destroyed by a storm of ashes and an overflow of lava. Rain frequently descended upon London, and if a rainfall continued long enough it would certainly have flooded the metropolis, but no precautions were taken against a flood from the clouds. Why, then, should the people have been expected to prepare for a catastrophe from fog, such as there had never been any experience of in the world's history? The ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... 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 kinds of animals are enumerated in its fauna, ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... when little harmless streams 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 ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... growth. This third growth winter-kills without injury to the tree, however. The significance of the growth presumably relates to the tree being an inhabitant of an arid country, where it has adapted itself to the rainfall of that country. I do not know if the trunk adds a new ring of wood after each resting period, but it likely enough ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... 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 ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... in the then wild Khasia Hills, whither he was detached for the purpose of devising means for the transport of the local coal to the plains. In spite of the depressing character of the climate (Cherrapunjee boasts the highest rainfall on record), Yule thoroughly enjoyed himself, and always looked back with special pleasure on the time he spent here. He was unsuccessful in the object of his mission, the obstacles to cheap transport offered by the dense forests and mighty precipices ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... 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 ...
— The Pecan and its Culture • H. Harold Hume
... 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
... 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 ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... driving with her mother and herself, looking about her at the new buildings and changed streets, flushed and made radiant by the accelerated pace and excitement of her beloved New York. But, oh, the slow, penetrating rainfall, and—the cold damp clay! ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... The country is healthy enough for a tropical region, though malarial fevers are very trying to European residents and visitors. The wet season is from May to November, when it rains about every day; and the rest of the year it does not rain at all. The average rainfall is fifty-four inches a year, and the average temperature 81 deg., though the glass goes up to 94 deg. in April; but New York beats that ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... 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 ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... 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 their riders, Pawing the spray into gems, till a fiery rainfall, unharming, Sparkled and gleamed on the limbs of the maids, and the coils of the mermen. So they went on in their joy, bathed round with the fiery coolness, Needing nor sun nor moon, self-lighted, immortal: but others, Pitiful, floated in silence apart; on their knees lay the sea-boys Whelmed ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... of the inferno, out of the awful strife of elements, out of that frightful rainfall, ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... the shape of bare and desolate wastes. Nor can the most practical legislator charge those, who wish to preserve the Adirondack woods, with idle sentiment; as it is now an established scientific fact that the rainfall of a country is largely dependent upon its forest land. If the water supply of the north were cut off, to any perceptible degree, the Hudson, during the months of July and August, would be a mere sluice of salt water from New York to Albany; and the northern ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... 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 Ark. This, with the chapter on the ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... laughter the sun-spot theory was received? At least I know I laughed when I first heard of it—but here in India, where the rainfall is the prime condition of existence to millions and the sun is much more powerful than with us, the Meteorological Department has just reported that there is apparently a sure connection between the rainfall and its distribution ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... from the 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 ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... 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
... another period of subsidence occurred. Then the great lake was drained, and the uplift began, slow and sure; then, and not before, were the conditions existent that have made the Canyon country as we see it to-day. Peaks and islets received the rainfall, tiny rivers were formed that grew larger and cut their way in deeper, as the uplift continued. The principal stream, which was then born, was the Colorado. It is supposed, from various evidences, that the ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... 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 ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... interesting to observe 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 ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... 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 ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... 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. ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... 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 or $250,000,000 worth ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... 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
... There was a great atomic-electric motor used in creating and 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 through ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow
... easily constructed from galvanized iron, as shown 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 ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... 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 ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... 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
... restriction 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 ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... imagined. As a matter of fact, no country of a similar latitude, with the exception of Sweden, enjoys the same immunity from intense cold. This is owing to the Gulf Stream, which also imparts its genial influence to Scandinavia. In summer the heat is never excessive, the rainfall is insignificant, and thunderstorms are rare. July is the warmest, and January the coldest month, but the mean temperature of Helsingfors in mid-winter has never fallen below that of Astrakhan, on ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... the whole island is warm and moist and very equable. The rainfall is copious at all times of the year, but is rather heavier during the prevalence of the north-east monsoon in the months from October to February, and least during the months of April and May. At Kuching, during the last thirty years, the average yearly rainfall has been 160 inches, the maximum ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... devoted 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 ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... the Athabaska, for the greater part, the frontier sky was blue and cloudless during most of the year. The rainfall was not great. The atmosphere was dry. It was a cheerful country, one of optimism and not of gloom. In the extreme south, along the Rio Grande, the climate was moister, warmer, more enervating; but on the high steppes of the middle range in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough
... 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
... intelligently 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 thrive the nutritious grasses on which 13,000,000 sheep, scattered over the Karroo of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... with Additions, consisting of New Formulae for the Discharge from Tidal and Flood Sluices and Siphons; general information on Rainfall, Catchment-Basins, Drainage, Sewerage, Water Supply for Towns and Mill Power. By JOHN NEVILLE, C.E.M.R. I.A.; Fellow of the Royal Geological Society of ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose
... 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 ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... into the hall, where the greatest confusion was prevailing among the deputies with regard to the coming vote. There was quite a rainfall of suggested "resolutions," from a very violent one proposed by Mege, to another, which was merely severe, emanating from Vignon. The ministry, however, would only accept the "Order of the day pure and simple," a mere decision, that is, to pass to the next business, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... will long be remembered as 'the Black Year'. It was the worst of a succession of wet seasons in the midland, western and southern counties of England, the average rainfall being one-fourth above the average, and 1880 was little better. The land, saturated and chilled, produced coarser herbage, the finer grasses languished or were destroyed, fodder and grain were imperfectly matured. Mould and ergot were prevalent among plants, ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... Felipe.) No details. 1899, August 8.—(San Ciriaco.) When this hurricane occurred there was a meteorological station in operation in San Juan, and we are therefore enabled to present the following data from Mr. Geddings's report: "The rainfall was excessive, as much as 23 inches falling at Adjuntas during the course of twenty-four hours. This caused severe inundations of rivers, and the deaths from drowning numbered 2,569 as compared with 800 killed by injuries ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... passing of the lightest vehicle. This venerable structure was crowned by a 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 overweight ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... 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 ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... Then they did get a shelter designed, and started teaching some of the students at the native schools how to build them, and then the meteorologists told them it was no good. It was a dugout shelter; the weathermen said there'd be rainfall measured in meters instead of inches and anybody who got caught in one of those dugouts would be ...
— Oomphel in the Sky • Henry Beam Piper
... economy is based on service activities connected with the country's strategic location and status as a free trade zone in northeast Africa. Two-thirds of the inhabitants live in the capital city, the remainder being mostly nomadic herders. Scanty rainfall limits crop production to fruits and vegetables, and most food must be imported. Djibouti provides services as both a transit port for the region and an international transshipment and refueling center. It has few natural resources and little industry. ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... 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 ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... 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 blossom as ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... 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
... alone; that was one great virtue. And, again, any government, however good, however bad, is but a small factor in the life of a people; it comes far below many other things in importance. A short rainfall for a year is more disastrous than a mad king; a plague is worse than fifty grasping governors; social rottenness is incomparably more dangerous than the ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... 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 ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... increases the yield—wheat doing much better if planted where beans or other legumes were raised the year before. Where the grain fields are not so large, irrigation can be depended upon instead of the rainfall, and crops then are sure and ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... it still more highly as a remedy for colic and other human ills. There are several pencil-mills in the village, which, in addition to other claims for fame, is noted as one of the rainiest spots in England, the annual rainfall at Seathwaite sometimes reaching one hundred and eighty-two inches. The Derwent flows on through a gorge past the isolated pyramidal rock known as Castle Crag, and the famous Bowder Stone, which has fallen into the gorge from the crags ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... Man. Were Nature uniform, in a 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
... never supported a large 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 cities ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... 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 ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... from some deep-set creek whose shallow gurgling would probably cease altogether when the dry season came on the heels of June. The old farmers had asked questions that implied doubt. They had wanted to know about sub-soil, and average rainfall, and late frosts, and markets. The profusely illustrated folders that used blue print for emphasis here and there, seemed no longer ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... "There hasn't been much rainfall lately," he added. "I reckon it has come at last and for a long stretch." His eyes swept the western horizon, where the clouds ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... move on foot in northern Mongolia without the certainty of a thorough wetting. When the sun has dried the dew, there are swamps and streamlets in every valley and even far up the mountain slopes. It is the heavy rainfall, the rich soil, and the brilliant sunshine that make northern Mongolia a paradise of luxurious grass and flowers, even though the real summer lasts only from May till August. Then, the valleys are like an exquisite ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... vestige of a once higher level, the borders of which have been denuded by the continual action of running water during the rushes from the mountains in the rainy season. This water action has long ceased to exist. There can be little doubt that in the ancient days of forest-covered mountains, the rainfall of Cyprus was far greater than at present, and that important torrents swept down from the hill-sides. We see evidences of this in the rounded blocks, all water-worn, of syenite and gneiss, which are intermingled with the bits of broken pottery in the vale, alike relics ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... which latter the flavor and odor are due. So far as climate is concerned for the existence of the tea plant in the United States, it will stand in the open air without injury from Virginia southwards. A zero frost will not kill it. But with regard to its production as a profitable crop, the rainfall in no portion of the States is sufficient to warrant any attempt to cultivate the plant for commercial purposes. But this does not prevent its culture as a domestic article, and many hundreds of families thus prepare all the tea they require, ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders
... shoes.) Now she could not risk spoiling the feather in her bonnet. The nine brats expressed their disappointment by slapping one another on the staircases. Peter felt that Mrs. Crowl connected him in some way with the rainfall, and was unhappy. Was it not enough that he had been deprived of the pleasure of pointing out to a superstitious majority the mutual contradictions of Leviticus and the Song of Solomon? It was not often that Crowl could count ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... forests, a magical change for the better is effected. Everywhere a soft, spongy carpet of fallen leaves, ever increasing in thickness, is spread out, moistening and enriching the soil and conserving the waters of the increased rainfall. A thousand living springs of pure, sparkling water make glad the plains and valleys. The evils of flood, erosion and drouth are checked; the climate made more congenial; the value of both hill and mountain, as a source of ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... rain 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 days," said they, "rain would fall incessantly;" whereas ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... acacia and syringa thickets, the gold sceptres and green lances of its 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 illumined ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... 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 ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... from St. Louis in flatboats. With the development of steamboat 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 ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... 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 the very crest of the mount, a patch of bare, brown rock, ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... as the 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
... amply sufficient to deliver us from all evils of weakness, sickness, incapacity: to endue us with all gifts of spiritual and immortal strength. But, while the limit of what Christ gives is His boundless wealth, the limit of what you possess is your faith. The rainfall comes down in the same copiousness on rock and furrow, but it runs off the one, having stimulated no growth and left no blessing, and it sinks into the other and quickens every dormant germ into life which ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... the other hand, our Canadian 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 ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... of man. The Bible story 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 6 ...
— 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 ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... his decision before he learned all 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 power ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... 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 ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... including those conditions of light, air, rainfall and temperature that make possible the maintenance of life ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing
... Africa; no country west of this range profits by their moisture, whereas the regions east of it receive it to the full. Hence the almost tropical fertility of Natal and eastern Cape Colony, with their high rainfall, their luxuriance of vegetation, indigo, figs, and coffee, and the jungles of cactus and mimosa which choke their torrid kloofs. Hence, equally, the more austere veld of the central tableland, the great grass wildernesses, which are as characteristic of South Africa as the ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... 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
... theory is that the 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 the action of the sun. The dewy grass ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... to moisture conditions, and grows best in regions where the summer rainfall is comparatively light. A damp and cloudy summer brings disaster to the vineyard in several ways; as small growth of vine, small set of fruit, a crop of poor quality, and the development of the several fungous diseases. Although the grape stands drought, a superfluity of moisture in the soil ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... windmills that lift water to some pond or reservoir placed as high as 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, ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... significant event of the second decade was the rise and decline of the Workingmen's Party, following the remarkable episode of the Sand Lot and Denis Kearney. The winter of 1876-77 had been one of slight rainfall, there had been a general failure of crops, the yield of gold and silver had been small, and there was much unemployment. There had been riots in the East and discontent and much resentment were rife. The line of least resistance ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... limbs hurt terribly at first, but grew numb with the circulation shut off. The jolting ride continued endlessly, he had no way of measuring the time. A rainfall soaked him, then he felt his clothes steaming as the sun ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... a north aspect even on a wall is a mistake. Morello cherries are a sure crop, pears a very doubtful one. The wood is not well ripened, and bloom-buds are not often formed. The amount of rainfall is also a matter for consideration. If the soil is light, more moisture will be needed than in heavier land. Heavy clays are not good for pears, yet much may be done to improve such soils, and some outlay may be desirable ...
— The Book of Pears and Plums • Edward Bartrum
... replied, "but there has been less rainfall for the past two years than Kansas has known for a decade. I imagine the ground is baked underneath on the prairies, and the rains only ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... the northern half is made up of lower hills and valleys. Several large lakes nestle among the mountains; one of them, Lake Crescent, is a famous summer resort. Lake Crescent is known as the home of the celebrated Beardslee trout. The eastern and southern parts have a rainfall sometimes nearing 100 inches annually, while in the eastern northerly part it is about 20 to ...
— A Review of the Resources and Industries of the State of Washington, 1909 • Ithamar Howell
... good soil covered a part of 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 ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... ask of you: Where, pray, is the water of Kane? Yonder, at sea, on the ocean, In the driving rain, 25 In the heavenly bow, In the piled-up mist-wraith, In the blood-red rainfall, In the ghost-pale cloud-form; There ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... 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
... yet—fifteen or twenty minutes at the best—before I dared attempt to carry out my plan of escape. In spite of the overspreading cloud, and steady rainfall, daylight lingered in the west, and a spectral glow hung above the ocean. It was a peculiar, almost ghastly light, yet of sufficient intensity to render objects visible for a considerable distance. However, there were preliminaries to ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... wheatgrowing in Australia mistakes were made and progress was slow. Wheat was grown in the wrong soil and districts, and suitable varieties of the cereal were not available. Cultivation was confined to the moist coastal country, with its annual rainfall of 30 to 40 in., and wheat was not a success. The discovery that the drier districts inland were more suitable for wheatgrowing altered the position very happily. The bulk of the wheat is now grown in districts with a rainfall of 20 ...
— Wheat Growing in Australia • Australia Department of External Affairs
... only by the collection and collocation of particulars that we can hope to reach any general law. There is, however, a good deal of evidence to support the opinion—the grounds for which were primarily derived from the labours of Dr. Meldrum at Mauritius—that increased rainfall and atmospheric agitation attend spot-maxima; while Herschel's conjecture of a more copious emission of light and heat about the same epochs has recently obtained some countenance from Savelieff's measures showing a gain in the strength of the sun's ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... Softer than rainfall at twilight, 5 Bringing the fields benediction And the hills quiet and greyness, Are ...
— Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics • Bliss Carman
... 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 ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... the earlier spring months is of such a character that exercise can be freely partaken of in the open air daily, without risk of chill; and this to the invalid is of paramount importance. No record has, as yet, been regularly taken of the daily sunshine, or of the rainfall, but so far as could be ascertained, the rainfall does not appear to be excessive. To sufferers from chronic or recurrent affections of the respiratory organs, Parknasilla, in the winter and early spring months, would appear to be indicated as a most desirable ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... solid kitchen refuse as fast as it accumulates. When a 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
... yellow-fever patients as nurses, or physicians, without contracting the disease; also the fact that the epidemic extension of the disease depends upon external conditions relating to temperature, altitude, rainfall, etc. It was a well-established fact that the disease is arrested by cold weather and does not prevail in northern latitudes or at considerable altitudes. But diseases which are directly transmitted from man to man by personal contact have no such limitations. ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... be a very severe penance for an island on which the rainfall averages 124 inches per year; but when vegetation suffers from the cruelty of four almost rainless months, promises and slights amount to something more than mere discourtesy. How genuine the thanksgiving ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... 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 overflow ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... plausible objection is that, even if we could admit the justice of a system of rewards and punishments, good and evil are so inextricably intermixed in this world that it is impossible to distribute benefits on a satisfactory moral scheme. It is impossible to manipulate the rainfall so that the righteous farmer shall have just what he wants at the appropriate seasons, while his wicked neighbour suffers from alternate drought and floods; nor can it be arranged that the midday express shall convey all the good people ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... rain into the chalk, 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, filled with ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... for 'the center,' but the 'ends of the town' always voted 'no'. On one occasion, in order to allay suspicion of extravagance, a leading villager moved that, whatever system of sewerage be adopted, the surface water and rainfall be allowed to take their natural course down-hill in the ordinary gutters. The farmers sniffed danger in this wily proposition and voted an overwhelming 'No.' Accordingly by the local law of Amherst, ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... rising above the shallow water of the lagoons. The oozy soil afforded no support for buildings, except when strengthened by piles; there was scarcely any land fit for farming or cattle-raising; and the only drinking water had to be stored from the rainfall. Yet on this unpromising site arose one of the ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... A preferable method is to put the lime in flat heaps of large size and about four feet deep, so that water may be applied or advantage be taken of rainfall. The value of the lime is so great that one can well afford to draw water and apply with a hose so that the quantity can be controlled with exactness. When fresh burned lime is perfectly slaked, each 56 pounds of pure lime becomes 74 pounds of hydrated lime, water ...
— Right Use of Lime in Soil Improvement • Alva Agee
... 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 understand this after ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... critter made off before they had a chance at a shot. But, say!" he exclaimed, "the 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 Sandy's tale ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... water-shed is accredited with an area of two hundred thousand square miles, and it lies upon the border-line of hot and cold temperatures. It is subject to heavy storms, and sometimes, in winter, to large accumulations of snow. It is presumable also, the rainfall is greater than the average of the country. When, following great deposits of snow, warm, heavy, and prolonged rains occur, excessive floods must be the result. Add to these coincidents the fact that forests, once existing, are now so nearly ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... produced not merely food but many kinds of materials, such as cotton, wool, hides, and lumber, while much of the unimproved land was either in farm wood-lots, or in rough range pasture. Of course the kinds and amounts of produce per acre vary with the climate, particularly with sunshine and rainfall; possibly the proportion of the area of the United States that is true desert and infertile mountain land is greater than that of any other equal area in the temperate zones. The actual productive ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... distance 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 ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... 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
... yard of cloth, two axes, two knives, and two awls. If it had been summer, many Indians would have gone with us, but as it was winter they would not leave their land, because it snowed very often up to the height of a man. To-day we had a great rainfall, and I gave the guide a pair of shoes. ...
— Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664 • Various
... by southeast trade winds; annual rainfall averages 124 inches; rainy season from November to April, dry season from May to October; little ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... Arnon and Yevre, and the communications of the department are greatly facilitated by the Canal du Berry, which traverses it from east to west, the lateral canal of the Loire, which follows the left bank of that river, and the canal of the Sauldre. The climate is temperate, and the rainfall moderate. Except in the Sologne, the soil is generally fertile, but varies considerably in different localities. The most productive region is that on the east, which belongs to the valley of the Loire; the central districts are tolerably fertile but marshy, being often flooded by ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... of the bygone ages. The soil, as so often happens in the West, was fertile to the very edge of the Frying-pan and young pinons and bushes had taken root there and managed to keep themselves alive with the snow-moisture of winter, in spite of the scanty rainfall ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... tillage accomplishes in a soil, two should be especially emphasized for the apple orchard, namely, soil moisture and soil texture. That moisture is a very important consideration in the apple orchard the effects of our frequent droughts are ample evidence. The amount of rainfall in the Eastern States when it is properly distributed is fully sufficient for the needs of an apple tree. By enlarging the reservoir or water holding capacity of the soil and by preventing the loss of water by evaporation, an excess of rainfall in the ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... kitchen, and you shall keep your room, Where white flows the river and bright blows the broom, And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white In rainfall at ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... rushes, 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 undoubtedly owe their formation to that destruction of forests which went ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin
... the soil tightly in one tube and leaving it loose in another. The water will be found to penetrate the loose soil more rapidly than the packed soil. We see then that the power of the soil to take in rainfall depends on its texture or the size and compactness ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich
... hour of the wedding are fixed by an official known as the Meda Gantia, or Counter of Posts. He is a sort of illiterate village astrologer, who can foretell the character of the rainfall, and gives auspicious dates for sowing and harvest. He goes through some training, and as a test of his capacity is required by his teacher to tell at a glance the number of posts in an enclosure which he has not seen before. Having ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... of my acquaintance was a most interesting study. If he was asked for fine weather (which, by the way, in the Solomons is the usual request, the rainfall being enormous), he used to temporize in a truly masterly manner. First he would hold out for more payment. This policy he could continue for an indefinite length of time, as he would of course require payment in a form ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... monuments first appeared in North Europe and spread southwards. Mackenzie is more inclined to believe in an African origin. If he is right it may be that some climatic change, possibly the decrease of rainfall in what is now the Sahara desert, caused a migration from Africa to Europe very similar to that which many believe to have given to Europe its early neolithic population. The megalithic people may even ...
— Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders • T. Eric Peet
... area of the country which it drains is limited enough. Fifty miles from its northern shores the rugged hills which form the backbone or "divide" of the continent raise their barren heads, and the streams carry from thence the vast rainfall of this region into the Bay of Hudson. Thus, when the voyageur has paddled, tracked, poled, and carried his canoe up any of the many rivers which rush like mountain torrents into Lake Superior from the north, he reaches the height of land between ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... 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 ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... Alleghanies running parallel only a few miles away. I have never seen a shagbark hickory between Roanoke and the coast, more than 200 miles away, but it occurs freely to within two or three miles on the west. The difference is not in elevation or rainfall, but in ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Thirty-Fourth Annual Report 1943 • Various
... same proportions. At one time one species prevails, at another time one or two or more other species. The weather during the spring and summer benefits some and hurts others, the winter may be too cold for some, but again harmless for others, the rainfall may partly drown some species, while others remain uninjured. Some weeds may be seen flowering profusely during some years, while in other summers they are scarcely to be found in the same meadow. The whole ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... An 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 ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... 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 ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... 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 ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... scars on the hill slopes. These are dished spaces, where the soil has been scraped off and the coral rock exposed and glazed with hard whitewash. Some of these are a quarter acre in size. They catch and carry the rainfall to reservoirs, for the wells are few and poor, and there are no natural springs and no brooks." (Mark Twain, "Some Rambling Notes of ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various
... 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 the ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... 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 in this very neighborhood. ...
— The Great Drought • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... of a rainfall we have had this time," said Capt. Noah, "but it must have been pretty heavy, for there seems to be as much water around as there was when it rained for 40 days ...
— The Cruise of the Noah's Ark • David Cory
... every way Nature had been making haste to prepare the land for the husbandman. Soil, climate, topographical conditions, all that the most exacting could demand, are present, but one thing, water, is wanting. The present rainfall would be wholly inadequate for agriculture, even if it were advantageously distributed over the lowlands, while in fact the greater portion is poured out on the heights in sudden and violent thundershowers called "cloud-bursts," ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... one sees great white scars on the hill-slopes. These are dished spaces where the soil has been scraped off and the coral exposed and glazed with hard whitewash. Some of these are a quarter-acre in size. They catch and carry the rainfall to reservoirs; for the wells are few and poor, and there are no ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... certain districts, many variations in these normal meteorological conditions. The dry season lasts in Manila from November till June (duration of the north-east monsoon); rain prevails during the remaining months (duration of the south-west monsoon). The heaviest rainfall occurs in September; March and April are frequently free from rain. From October to February inclusively the weather is cool and dry (prevalence of N.W., N., and N.E. winds); March, April, and May are warm and dry (prevalence of E.N.E., E., and E.S.E. winds); and ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... 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
... the little, gray vandals, which ate the grass clean to the sod, and trampled with their sharp-pointed hoofs the very roots into lifelessness; which polluted the water-holes and creeks until cattle and horses went thirsty rather than drink; which, in that land of scant rainfall, devastated the range where they fed so that a long-established prairie-dog town was not more barren. What wonder if the men who owned cattle, and those who tended them, hated sheep? So does the farmer dread an ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... 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 local cause to ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... 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 the salamanders and ...
— Natural History of the Salamander, Aneides hardii • Richard F. Johnston |
