Vol 6 - Dumfriesshire & Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian ...

Transactions, 31greatly retarded the work of the harvest, and caused in many casesserious damage to the grain crops. In the other autumn monthsthere was an unusual decline of temperature, the mean of Octoberbeing only 45° and that of November 39"7°, as compared with•49-8° last year in the former month and 42-1° in the latter. Asearly as the 8th October the higher hills in Dumfriesshire andover Scotland had a covering of snow, and on the night of the11th or morning of the 12th the thermometer registered 8° offrost. Northerly and easterly winds prevailed in both thesemonths, and in November the sky was for the most part overcast,with a consequent minimum of sunshine, which made the weatherboth cold and gloomy. October had 10 nights of frost, with anaggregate of 28°, and November 13 nights, with an aggregate of47°. The total number of days throughout the year in which thethermometer was at or below the freezing point was 96, and theaggregrate degrees of frost 360.In 1886 the number of days was112, and the aggregate .536°. So far, however, was the excess ofcold this year counterbalanced by the unusual heat of June andJuly that the mean temperature of the year was 1° higher thanthat of 1886, viz., 47'2° as compared with 46'2° in the latter yearComparing this with the mean temperature of other parts of Scotland,as reported this week in some of thenewspapers, I find thatArdrossan had a mean temperature for the past year of 47*3°;Leith, of 47'2°; Aberdeen, of 46-4°; and Wick, of 45-3°. It maybe interesting to note, as showing the diflerence between a northernand southern temperature, that the mean annual temperature ofGreenwich for the last fifty years is 51 '8°. Mr Dudgeon of Cargenreports a mean for the year of 46 '2°. How this difference fromthe temperature of Dumfries is to be explained I cannot say ; butI have repeatedly observed that both the highest maximum andthe lowest minimum temperatures of the month atCargen are, asa rule, lower than those reported at Dumfries by one or twodegrees, and sometimes more. There must be different local conditionsaffecting the temperature to give rise to this difference inplaces so near one another. The mean of 47'2°, though above themean of the previous year, is still somewhat under the usual average.Rainfall.—There were 181 days on which rain or snow fell(rain, 170; snow, 11); on 34 of which, however, the fall did notexceed one hundredth of an inch ; total, 30-99 inches. In 1886rain or snow fell on 224 days, with a total of 41-13 inches. Theheaviest fall in 24 hours in 1887 occurred between 9 A.M. of 6th