1388. The quantity of rain, taken at an annual mean, is the greatest at the equator, and it lessens gradually to the poles, at which there are fewer days of rain, the number increasing in proportion to the distance from them. From north latitude 12ﾦ to 43ﾦ, the mean number of rainy days is 78; from 43ﾦ to 46ﾦ, the mean number is 103; from 46ﾦ to 50ﾦ, 134; and from 51ﾦ to 60ﾦ, 161. Winter often produces a greater number of rainy days than summer, though the quantity of rain is more considerable in the latter than in the former season. At St. Petersburgh, rain and snow fall, on an average, eighty-four days of the winter; and the quantity amounts to about five inches: on the contrary, the summer produces eleven inches in about the same number of days. Mountainous districts are subject to great falls of rain; among the Andes, particularly, it rains almost incessantly; while the flat country of Egypt is consumed by endless drought, Dalton estimates the quantity of rain falling in England at thirty-one inches. The mean annual quantity of rain for the whole globe is thirty-four inches.
