As to climate, will general credence be given to the statement that Dunk
Island is more "temperate" than Melbourne? We experience neither the
extreme heat nor the extreme cold of the metropolis of Victoria--nearly
2000 miles to the south; we have four or five times the volume of rain,
yet a greater number of fine days--days without rain. The general
principle that where the rainy days are fewest the amount of rain is
greatest, is apt to be forgotten. During 1903 the rainfall of Dunk Island
amounted to 153 inches. What is meant (to follow the phrase of Huxley)
when one says in technical language that the rainfall of a place was 153
inches for a certain year? Such a statement means simply that if all the
rain which fell on any level piece of ground in that place could be
collected--none being lost by drying up, none running off the soil and
none soaking into it--then at the end of the year it would form a layer
covering that piece of ground to the uniform depth of 12 feet 9 inches!
An inch of rain signifies 114 tons, or 27,000 gallons per acre!
Let me repeat that in 1903 the rainfall here totalled 153 inches. During
the same period the mean rainfall of the State of Victoria was 27.
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