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British Rainfall 1895 page 15

Jubilee of Seathwaite Rainfall Station


SEATHWAITE'S JUBILEE, 1845-94.

This event ought properly to have been announced in our last volume, but it was impossible to prepare the tables in time.
In British Rainfall, 1867, I wrote an article of nine pages (with a map) on the "Origin, progress, and present state of our knowledge of the rainfall in the Lake District." That article need not be reprinted, but, as those early volumes are scarce, will be quoted from rather than referred to.
Another preliminary remark: Seathwaite was but one of Dr. Miller's stations; in considering the rainfall at Seathwaite, we are naturally tempted to refer to that at surrounding stations; but to discuss all the Lake District observations would be a heavy task, and therefore this year's notice will be limited to the record of what has been done in the little hamlet of Seathwaite.

HISTORY OF THE STATION.

It is not now possible to ascertain the whole details with precision.
Dr. J. Fletcher Miller, F.R.S. resided at Whitehaven, and in 1833 began to keep a meteorological register. Ten years later he became specially interested in the distribution of rainfall; in November, 1843, he started a gauge in Ennerdale. It broke down, and in June of the following year he renewed it, and established six other stations; and in January of 1845 we have the first return for Seathwaite, commencing the record which is now in its 52nd year.
Most probably the reason for the starting of this record, was the residence there of Mr. John Dixon, who was the agent for the Borrowdale Plumbago Mine, and in the garden of whose cottage the gauge remained the whole time.
Dr. Miller's mountain gauges were abandoned in 1853, he himself died in 1856, and at that time few took any interest in the rainfall of the district except Mr. Dixon, who went on with the Seathwaite record until a revival took place about 1863; and to the time of his death in 1866 rainfall owes much to the interest taken in it by Mr. Dixon. Since about 1863, there have been several observers, and small payments have been made in consideration of extra observations and of additional work.
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