Raindrops

Ilow large is a drop of rain? Hrobably most people have a notion that raindrops are nearly all of one size, although it is a matter of common observatiun that in what is callèd B inisty rain, or a dri.zle, the individual drops are very smull. The question of the size of raindrops is not so unimportant as might be supposed, and Mr. E. L. Lowe has eolleeted many facts bearing upon it, and presented them to the Royal Meterologieal society. He employed in his experiments sheets of slate made in book form so as to be readily closed, and ruled in inch squares. The impressions of the drops were caught on the slate and afterward carefully copied on paper. Ile discovered that the size of raindrops varíes from a speek so small as to be almost invisible up to a diameter of two inches. Every reader has probably noted that the raindrops preceding a thunderstorm frequently assume gigantic proportions, though he may not have suspected that they conld ever attain so great a size as Mr. Lowe has discovered that they do. Other interesting facts about raindrops which have been brought out by Mr. Lowe's experiments are that drops of the same size do not always contain the same amount of water, and that some of the largeat drops are hollow. The importance of these observation from a scien tifie point of view lies in the bearing of the facts thus ascertained upon the question of the manner of precipitation of the aqueous vapor of the atmosphere. From another point of view they are important as illustrating nature's power to introduce variety into her works, even when her hand is busied merely in forming drops of rain.