button to main menu  British Rainfall 1897, p.21

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British Rainfall 1897 page21
This wonderful agreement may be regarded in two aspects: (1) as evidence of the accurate results which can be obtained by careful reduction of rainfall records; or (2) as evidence that the labour we have devoted to preparing this article has been wasted, inasmuch as the result is practically identical with what we obtained thirty years back. To that there are two replies: (a) that nobody would have believed the old figures to be so near the truth; and (b) that we have not merely the old values confirmed, but also records from six times as many additional ones.
We have, however, not yet finished with that 1867 evidence. In the autumn of 1866, we erected thirteen rain gauges at the under-mentioned stations. At the time of the enquiry there were available the records of only three months (Oct.-Dec. 1866), and the problem was to interpret those records, and to infer from them the probable yearly mean rainfall at each station; the difficulty being exceptionally increased, by there being no old-established station in the eastern part of the district, of which the records could be used for comparison. We have now records for more than 30 years for some of the stations, and it is not easy to devise a more severe test for rainfall work than to compare the assumptions based upon three months, with the facts accumulated during 30 years. However, here they are:-

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Here, of course, the differences are far greater than in the previous comparison.
Differences (inches)2521181612975310
Instances11111111131
The mean error was, therefore about 9 inches, or 10 per cent. of the total; and, as the errors were some in one direction and some in the other, we have the curious result for the whole thirteen stations -
Computation in 1867 based on 3 months = 82.5 in.
Computation in 1898 from subsequent 30 years = 83.3 in.
Now a few remarks upon the features brought out by the Map.
One fact which we think has not been generally recognised is the
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