"Rainfall" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mountains on the west, the Coeur d'Alene and Bitter Root Mountains on the east, the Okanozan range to the north, and the Blue Mountains to the south. The valley floor was basalt, from the lava flow of volcanoes in ages past. The rainfall was slight except in the foot-hills of the mountains. The Columbia River, making a prodigious and meandering curve, bordered on three sides what was known as the Bend country. South of this vast area, across the range, began the fertile, many-watered region that extended ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... 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 of the ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... entry of the 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 the water of a well near Tring, shows itself ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... scrub-covered plains, sand-plains, or flat stretches of open forest are found. In the deeper undulations, long chains of dry salt-lakes and samphire-flats are met with, occupying a narrow belt, perhaps one hundred miles in length. Doubtless were the rainfall greater, these lakes would be connected, and take the place of rivers, which would eventually find their way into the Australian Bight. Unfortunately for the comfort of travellers, this is not the case, and their ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... every variety 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 ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... another at a somewhat higher 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, and there ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... 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 ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... 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 into unknown ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... time, his plan took shape. He went one night to the temple foundations, still in process of digging, and with standing water in them which had collected from the rainfall or otherwise; here he deposited a goose egg, into which, after blowing it, he had inserted some new-born reptile. He made a resting-place deep down in the mud for this, and departed. Early next morning he rushed into the market-place, naked except for a gold-spangled loin-cloth; ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... September 13th, 1843, Charles J. Tyers was appointed Commissioner of Crown Lands for the district. He endeavoured to make his way overland to the scene of his future labours, but the mountains were discharging the accumulated waters of the winter and spring rainfall, every watercourse was full, and the marshes ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... which, though, under the existing misrule, mainly a waste of marsh and wilderness, needs only intelligent attention to become, as it was of old, the granary of western Asia. Except in the extreme south, the rainfall is small and the air dry. The heat in summer is intense, while bitterly cold northern blasts sweep the plain in winter. Whirlwinds are not uncommon; and, in the intervals of the periodical inundations, the fine, dry, powdery soil is swept, even by ...
— Hasisadra's Adventure - Essay #7 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... 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 wanly ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... 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
... Albert N'yanza Great Basin of the Nile," published in 1866, has given an account of the equatorial lake system from which the Egyptian river derives its source. It has been determined by the joint explorations of Speke, Grant, and myself, that the rainfall of the equatorial districts supplies two vast lakes, the Victoria and the Albert, of sufficient volume to support the Nile throughout its entire course of thirty degrees of latitude. Thus the parent stream, fed by never-failing reservoirs, supplied by the ten months' rainfall of the equator, rolls ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... at the southern end of this miserable street, just at a point where the drainage of the Big Hill collects. The rainfall runs down through Niggertown, under its sties, stables, and outdoor toilets, and the well supplies the negroes with water for cooking, washing, and drinking. Or, rather, what was once a well supplies this water, for it is ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... "hunting snows" fell in October, and then the men of the Back Country set out on the chase. Their object was meat—buffalo, deer, elk, bear-for the winter larder, and skins to send out in the spring by pack-horses to the coast in trade for iron, steel, and salt. The rainfall in North Carolina was much heavier than in Virginia and, from autumn into early winter, the Yadkin forests were sheeted with rain; but wet weather, so far from deterring the hunter, aided him to the kill. In ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... with one of the soils, packing 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
... resources of Victoria than the gold. It had surprised him when he travelled overland to Adelaide to see from Willunga 30 miles of enclosed and cultivated farms, and it surprised me to see sheepruns close to Melbourne. With a better rainfall and equally good soil, Victoria had neither the farms nor the vineyards nor the orchards nor the gardens that had sprung up under the 80-acre section and immigration systems of South Australia. It had been an outlying portion of New South Wales, neglected and exploited for pastoral settlement ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... innumerable instances nonimmune persons had been known to care for 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
... grows afresh every year; and 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 ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin
... they lived up till the night of the ninth day since their landing on the isle; then a heavy rainfall, filling the concavity of the boat's sail, enables them to replenish the beaker, with other vessels ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... conducted to the polar regions. And the heat from the interior of the earth makes all the parts of the earth's surface warmer. Winds almost stop blowing. Ocean currents stop flowing. The land receives less rainfall, until finally everything turns to a desert; almost the only rain is on the ocean. Animals die even before the rivers dry up, for the flesh eaters are not able to see their prey, and since, without light, all green things die, the animals that ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... with their yellow pressed 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 ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... ruins, usually having one, two, or three rooms each, all of which are built of basaltic cinders and blocks. Through the plain a valley runs to the north, and then east to the Little Colorado. Down the midst of the valley there is a wash, through which, in seasons of great rainfall, astream courses. Along this stream there are extensive ruins built of sandstone and limestone. At one place a village site was discovered, in which several hundred people once found shelter. To the north of this and about twenty-five miles from the summit of San Francisco Peak there ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... 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 to ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... north, continental climate (cold winters and hot, humid summers with well distributed rainfall); central portion, continental and Mediterranean climate; to the south, Adriatic climate along the coast, hot, dry summers and autumns and relatively cold ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Rio Grande to 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, western Nebraska, ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough
... the walls of these 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 its source in highlands, cuts a channel through clay ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... the shorter of the two that we used to take for our walks round Combray, and for that reason was reserved for days of uncertain weather, it followed that the climate of Meseglise shewed an unduly high rainfall, and we would never lose sight of the fringe of Roussainville wood, so that we could, at any moment, run for shelter beneath its dense thatch ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... consequence might be foreseen. 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 consequent ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... least, in which the denuding the country of its forests has lessened the rainfall: in certain conditions of the atmosphere every tree is a great condenser of moisture, as I had just observed in the case of the old elm; little showers are generated in their branches, and in the aggregate the amount of water precipitated in this way is considerable. Of ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... 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
... most part covered, presenting considerable variety, while from the more elevated positions charming prospects may be enjoyed." —Dr. Edwin Lee. The mean winter temperature is 47.4 F., and the average annual rainfall is 26 inches. But on the Riviera, as in England, every winter varies in the rainfall and in the degree of cold; and therefore the chances are that the traveller's experience will not agree with the carefully-compiled ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... 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 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... made from durum wheat, according to Saunders a variety of hard, spring wheat. It is best grown in regions of restricted rainfall. Durum and other varieties of hard spring wheat grown under similar conditions, differ but little in general chemical composition, except that the gluten of durum appears to have a different percentage of gliadin ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder
... healthfulness, climate is a fundamental and controlling factor, both in productiveness and economic farm management. Temperature and rainfall affect the number of days that work can be performed upon the land and hence affect materially the economy of labor. It is this fact that prevents the systematic organization of labor so common in manufacturing and transportation. The climate ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... 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 ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... region of the Javary River (the boundary between Brazil and Peru), is one of the most formidable and least known portions of the South American continent. It abounds with obstacles to exploration of the most overwhelming kind. Low, swampy, with a heavy rainfall, it is inundated annually, like most of the Amazon basin, and at time of high water the rivers know no limits. Lying, as it does, so near the equator, the heat is intense and constant, oppressive even to the native. The forest-growth—and ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... should agitate the surrounding waters. If destroyed in the hurricane season, these structures are not renewed until settled weather. In so small and low lying an island as that of Nassau, it is very plain that this crystal liquid, pure and tasteless, cannot come from any rainfall upon the soil, and its existence, therefore, suggests a problem, the solving of which we submit ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... September. Actually, it is likely that the season is more 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 ...
— Natural History of the Salamander, Aneides hardii • Richard F. Johnston
... in perfect repair; and indeed the custodian said frankly enough, on reappearing, that they were merely built over the prisons on the site of the original towers. The storied stream of the Bacchiglione sweeps through the grounds, and now, swollen by the rainfall, it roared, a yellow torrent, under a corner of the prisons. The towers rise from masses of foliage, and form no unpleasing feature of what must be, in spite of Signor P——, a delightful Italian garden in sunny weather. The ground is not so flat ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... 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 ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... followed was quick and abbreviated to terms of understanding between two men who knew. Grass was the subject. Mention was made of the winter rainfall and of the chance for late spring rains to come. Names occurred, such as the Little Coyote and Los Cuatos creeks, the Yolo and the Miramar hills, the Big Basin, Round Valley, and the San Anselmo and Los Banos ranges. Movements of herds and droves, past, present, and to come, were discussed, ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... in 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 place of residence. ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... its proper use and sphere, yet the things which are vital to our happiness and prosperity can only be known by the rational use and subtle skill of our natural powers. We may trust the instrument with the prophecy of storm, or registry of rainfall; but the conditions of atmospheric change, on which depend the health of animals and fruitfulness of seeds, can only be discerned by the ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... section has its own necessities. Rules that would apply to Oregon and Washington, with their sixty inches of rainfall a year, would not apply to Arizona, with its ten. One great mountain region, whose waters drained off into the ocean and could never be used for irrigating purposes, might safely be let open to all kinds of grazing; ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... 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 the maidens, Pawing the spray into gems, till a fiery rainfall, unharming, Sparkled and gleamed on the limbs of the nymphs, and the coils of the mermen. Onward they went in their joy, bathed round with the fiery coolness, Needing nor sun nor moon, self-lighted, immortal: ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... 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 ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... until I was persuaded that it was growing above water every instant. The river ran in this spot in a perfect torrent, with an incline, I should say, of nearly three feet in a hundred. The stream bore off the rainfall of a whole net-work of hills, but at the pace at which it ran it could not take long before it would become passable at some risk. I said nothing as yet, but the conversation I had held with Lieutenant ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... 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 ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... deciduous forests triumphed again, and, in 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 of the ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... roar, which covered the moss with a thick carpet of yellow water that made rather a squashing sound under the feet. And the almost imperceptible murmur, the floating, ceaseless murmur gentle and sad, of this rainfall seemed like a low wail, and those leaves continually falling, seemed like tears, big tears shed by the tall mournful trees which were weeping, as it were, day and night over the close of the year, over the ending of warm dawns ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... perfectly level ground, are soon trod on and broken in by cattle; in summer they are choked up with dust and rubbish; and, the loose earth having all been thrown up together in a heap on one side, there is no barrier to the water which in eveiy great rainfall flows in and obliterates the kennel, drowning or ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... 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
... have their immediate source in the rainfall. By the heat of the sun water is evaporated from the reservoir of the ocean and from moist surfaces everywhere. Mingled as vapor with the air, it is carried by the winds over sea and land, and condensed it returns to the ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... existing in different portions of the country. New cereals have been established in the semi-arid West. For instance, the practicability of producing the best types of macaroni wheats in regions of an annual rainfall of only ten inches or thereabouts has been conclusively demonstrated. Through the introduction of new rices in Louisiana and Texas the production of rice in this country has been made to about equal the home demand. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... Craven I can get as much carbonic acid as I want from the decomposing limestone; while on the Snowdon Silurian I get very little; and I have to make it up by clinging to the mountain tops, for the sake of the greater rainfall. But if you ask Polypodium calcareum—How is it you choose only to grow on limestone, while Polypodium Dryopteris, of which, I suspect, you are only a variety, is ready to grow anywhere?—Polypodium calcareum will refuse, as yet, ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... until today it covers almost the entire floor of the valley except for the open space where the city stands. I do not know that this is true. It may be that the forest has always been here, but it is one of their legends and it is borne out by the fact that there is not sufficient rainfall ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of land overcharged with water. There is no escape from the fact that Ireland as a country is cursed with defective natural drainage. The fall of the greater rivers is so slight that they meander hither and thither in "S's," as they say here, and only require a little surplus on the average rainfall to overflow the more valuable land. And it is astonishing how quickly good land left untilled reverts to its primeval condition, or, in the expressive language of the country, "goes back to bog." This has ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... The rainfall is comparatively very slight on the entire Mexican plateau, limited, in fact, to two or three months in the year, which renders irrigation a universal necessity to insure success in farming; but the means employed for the purpose, as we have seen, are singularly primitive. The same objection ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... to say that it has been thought advisable to retain all the strictly scientific matter found in Dr. Livingstone's journals for future publication. When one sees that a register of the daily rainfall was kept throughout, that the temperature was continually recorded, and that barometrical and hypsometrical observations were made with unflagging thoroughness of purpose year in and year out, it is obvious that ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... little if any help in the way of irrigation. The rainy season, although generally occurring from October to February, is not, however, to be absolutely depended upon; thus it is recorded that in 1330, during the reign of Hugo of Lusignan, the rainfall was so heavy and the rivers flooded to such an extent as to spread desolation far and near; and under Constantine there was no rain for thirty-six years, so that most of the inhabitants left the island. Again, in modern times, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... remember with what 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 ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... So heavy was the rainfall that the young pilot could see only a few car lengths ahead of him. Instinctively he tightened the brakes slightly. The car was swaying giddily, not having a train ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... 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 ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... may not 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 to ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... are embedded fragments of siliceous sandstone, used for 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 its ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... big rivers flow is very flat, and is therefore liable to great floods. Australia has the reputation of being a very dry country; as a matter of fact, the rainfall over one-third of its area is greater than that of England. In most places the rainfall is, however, badly distributed. After long spells of very dry weather there will come fierce storms, during which ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... 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 ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... about me 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 ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... 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 ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... comparatively easy to deal with. It is very different with floods due to irregular rainfall. Here also, however, the mere quantity of rain is by no means the only matter to be considered. For instance a heavy rain in the watershed of the Seine, unless very prolonged, causes less difference ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... the forced draft 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 ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... of Vendee. It divides the region drained by the Sevre Nantaise and the Thouet (both affluents of the Loire) in the north from the basins of the Sevre Niortaise and the Charente in the south. The climate is mild, the annual temperature at Niort being 54 deg. Fahr., and the rainfall nearly 25 in. The winters are colder in the Gatine, the summers warmer in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... Perasto to the rock. There are two festivals celebrated here, of which the more important is that of the Assumption, August 15. The other, the Birth of the Virgin, on September 8, is less so. There is a proverb "Entre le due Madonne cade la pioggia," the greatest rainfall occurring between the two festivals. On festival days the picture is decked with rings, chains, &c., kept locked up at Perasto during the rest of the year. The property of the church is over L30,000. For five hundred ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... at least, agriculture has been by far our most important industry. Of the two billion acres comprising continental United States, approximately half are under cultivation. In most sections of the country the quality of the soil is good, and rainfall is ample. We have long led the world in the value of farm crops grown. Our production of wheat, corn, oats, barley, rye, and dairy products totals an enormous figure. The steady enclosure of lands formerly used for grazing stock is restricting our production of food animals, but we are still important ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... in 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
... gossip, and daily whispers it up and down the line, and daily news and gossip fly hither and thither: who's "inside," who has gone out, whom to expect, where the mailman is, the newest arrival in Darwin and the latest rainfall at ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... crush of towering hills, was exaggerated as the sun rose in the heavens and revealed the obscurer recesses of the stupendous world. And now, too, the forest grew dank and moist, and the steady dripping of the melting snow upon the branches became like a heavy rainfall within ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... of getting his own way about things, and he reflected with satisfaction that as long as the roads to Lawton were almost impossible for traffic after the rainfall, there would be a few days in which to scheme for his plan. Nothing of this, however, appeared in his face. He turned ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... (excluding Alaska), it has 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
... of science to the cultivation of the soil, came the students of Conservation. They were teaching the farmer the relation of conservation of natural resources to agriculture, the effects of forests on rainfall, moisture, erosion of soil, minimization of floods that annually bury thousands of acres of arable lands in the valleys, under rocky debris ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... presenting to the rarely clouded sky an unbroken foliage-surface, with isothermal zones rigidly marked by their indigenous growths. A tract of country until yesterday bare of surface water for lack of occupation, and lacking occupation for dearth of surface water. Which goes to show that regularity of rainfall is not ensured by copious ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... are the planes, its head the nose, its thorax the fuselage and its long projecting abdomen the tail or rudder. On wing the dragon-fly is one of the swiftest and most powerful insects. The dragon-flies are found all over the world being most abundant in the warmer regions where rainfall and bodies of water are abundant. For breeding they require water, their immature stages living under water feeding on aquatic animal life. Our present order of dragon-flies is the remains of an ancient race ...
— An Elementary Study of Insects • Leonard Haseman
... evaporated, and what is known as Coahuila Valley was 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 do not carry the sediment to the sea. So the mountains are washed down and the valleys are ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... Farmers are divided in opinion as to whether the riding plow reduces the labor cost. The lister, recently patented, throws the earth into a ridge and enables the farmer to plant without previously breaking the soil. It is valuable in the dry regions of the West, but useless where the rainfall is great, as the soil must there be broken up anyhow. There have been 920 corn gatherers patented, of which only one is considered a success, and most farmers reject it on account of the waste. The general verdict is that ...
— If Not Silver, What? • John W. Bookwalter
... or autumn crop; and boro, or spring rice. The climate of Backergunje is one of the healthiest in Eastern Bengal, owing to the strong south-west monsoon, which comes up directly from the Bay of Bengal, and keeps the atmosphere cool; but the heavy rainfall and consequent humidity of the atmosphere, combined with the use of bad water, are fruitful sources of disease. The average annual temperature varies from 78deg to 85deg F. The thermometer ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... 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 invasion ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... two deadfalls with the carrion half way between them. Then one or two more traps and they reached home, arriving at the camp just as darkness and a heavy rainfall began. ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... and constitution, since the greater part of that period has been spent under conditions calculated to put them to the test. Especially has the sun given penetrating tastes of his quality and bestowed enduring marks of his favour. During these twelve joyful years the annual rainfall has averaged over 131 inches, the average number of days on which rain has fallen being 134. Of the heat of the sun during the hottest month of the year let two unstudied records speak. As January 29, 1907, gave early ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... 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 less, ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... some time 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, ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... the thirsty tide ran inland, And the salt waves drank of me, And I who was fresh as the rainfall ...
— Love Songs • Sara Teasdale
... Michigan in the autumn of 1933. A perusal of the meteorological records shows that the average maximum and minimum temperatures in September and October were unusually high and that there was a heavy rainfall in these two months. The following table shows the precipitation and temperatures recorded at the Kellogg Farm where most of our ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... 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 unity of ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... settling here permanently. People can safely 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 ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... contents. This residue is described as 'permanent tissue.' The observations were carried out through two growing seasons—1894-5—which were very different in character, the former being rainy with low temperature, the latter being abnormal in the opposite direction, i.e. minimum rainfall and maximum sunshine. The barley selected for observation was that of two experimental plots of the Royal Agricultural Society's farm, one (No. 1) remaining permanently unmanured, and showing minimum yield, the other (No. 6) receiving such fertilising treatment ...
— Researches on Cellulose - 1895-1900 • C. F. Cross
... landowner near Kiev. He loves to tell how he drove through town behind six white horses. Gambling ruined him, and to pay his debts he sold one acre after another to the Jews, who cut down the timber and ruined the land. Of course, where there are no trees the rainfall is scarce. The crops dried up, and finally Pan Tchedesky and his wife and children were forced into the city. There remained enough of his former property to start a pension. The rooms are full of the remains of his splendor—heavy ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... allow the diluted sewage to escape into the sea at any stage of the tide; and, while it is easy to contend that it will not then be more impure than storm water which is permitted to be discharged into inland streams during heavy rainfall, the aforesaid sentimentalists may conjure up many possibilities of serious results. As far as possible the records should indicate the course taken by floats starting from the outfall, at high water, and at each regular hour afterwards on the ebb tide, as well as at low water and every ...
— The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns • Henry C. Adams
... 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 history of the battles ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... appropriate slope or steppe, the needful rainfall, that conditions the growth of grass, this which conditions the presence of herds or flocks, and these again which determine the very existence of shepherds. These granted then, not only do the pastoral arts and ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes
... on toward Plock, the wind had already somewhat dried the road, and although it rained often, yet the rainfall, as is usual in the spring, consisted of larger drops, but warm, and of short duration. The furrows upon the fields glistened with water. The moist, sweet smell from the cultivated fields was wafted by the strong wind. The marshes were ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... are just the right distance from the river to make this the location of the best town in the state, and probably eventually the state capital. Land will increase in value by leaps and bounds. No stumps, no stones, just the right amount of rainfall—the garden spot of the West, Mr. ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... The rainfall averages about one hundred inches, and most of this precipitation takes place between May and the end of September. This, coupled with the lack of forest, causes the rivers to become rushing torrents during the rainy season, while during the balance ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... but her cheeks flushed and her eyes grew brighter. She stooped and peered out at the decreasing rainfall. There was a path leading straight toward the Stone Face. Had this girl whom Jennie had seen gone in ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson
... 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 ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... lay a huge new world—an ocean of grassy prairie that rolled far to the west, till it reached the zone where insufficient rainfall transformed it into the arid plains, which stretched away to the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains. Over this vast waste, equal in area to France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Denmark, and Belgium combined, a land where now wheat ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... which he describes as a plain at the end of the earth or beneath, with no snow nor rainfall, and the sun never goes down, and Rhadamanthus, the justest of men, rules. Hesiod's heaven is what he calls the islands of the blessed, in the midst of the ocean, three times a year blooming with most exquisite flowers, and the air is tinted with purple, while ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... I went to see about the others. Met the colonel. Offered him the freedom of our large marquee for his men to sleep in or shelter as they pleased. He was most grateful, so in the midst of a dreadful rainfall about two hundred of these fellows found shelter. All were hungry. We had five boxes of biscuits for our own use, and fifteen gallons of gingerbeer. Mr. Young, of the S.A.G.M., who was a great help to me, took a bucket of the gingerbeer and some biscuits to the ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... moderated by southeast trade winds; annual rainfall averages about 3 m; rainy season from November to April, dry season from May to October; little ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... methods of tillage, dairying, and breeding were scientifically examined. Forestry became a great interest. Intensive agriculture spread. By early ploughing and incessant use of cultivators keeping the surface soil a mulch, arid tracts were rendered to a great extent independent of both rainfall and irrigation. Improved machinery made possible the farming of vast areas with few hands. The gig horse hoe rendered weeding work almost a pleasure. A good reaper with binder attachment, changing horses once, ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews |
