THE public have to thank Dr. ALLNATT, of Frant, for an excellent review of the weather of the past twelve months. It is always pleasant to be able to correct one's vague recollections by an actual record; and there is, perhaps, no subject on which such differences of opinion exist as on the character, for heat or cold, for rain or sunshine, of a by-gone year. The year 1873 was in its weather, what it was in everything else but in its accidents and calamities, a common-place period. It followed a period of storms. When it dawned over our drowned fields, with all the promise of a bright sun and a cloudless sky, it seemed as though the weather had turned over a new leaf with the new date.

But next day the storms came back, and, for more than a week, the entire island was swept by hurricanes, with thunder and lightning, snow, hail, and rain. The whole month of January was stormy, and Dr. ALLNATT speaks of it as " a month of somewhat strangely developed thermal vicissitudes," resulting, however, in a mean temperature just above the average. February was unusually cold. From the 1st to the 24th we suffered all over this country "an unwonted run of unmitigated north-east blasts," which made the month the winter of the year. A heavy gale raged in the Channel on the 7th and 8th, and a great snow-storm covered nearly the whole island on the 22nd and 23rd.

March came in with a violent south-wester, and a tropic gale blew on the 10th. On the 15th a heavy storm of wind did much damage in London and in the Channel.

The summer weather, which had come from the sweet south on the 28th, lasted till the 5th of April, when winter suddenly came back. On the 14th of April the temperature suddenly rose twenty degrees; on the 16th the heat was intense, the thermometer marking 70° in the shade. In the next ten days the temperature sank twenty-five degrees, and the frosts re- turned, destroying largely the blossom on the fruit-trees and delaying the movement of migratory birds. May completed an ungenial spring, with twenty- four days out of its thirty-one below the average temperature. It is worthy of note that on the 1st of May a north wind caused the temperature to rise five degrees above the average, while from the 3rd to the 9th, beneath the influence of tropical breezes, the daily temperature was below the average. "From the 13th to the 19th," says Dr. ALLNATT, " the wind was steadily Polar, and another anomaly arose, for on the 20th it veered to the south, and the temperature fell 10.2 degrees below the acknowledged mean." This anomaly is by no means without a precedent. We be- lieve that during one of the longest frosts on record the wind blew steadily from the south.

The spring, though changeable and cold, was, on the whole, a dry one. An excessive rainfall in January and February was succeeded in April and May by a slight deficiency. This much-needed improvement did not continue. June, again, showed the curious anomaly noticed in May of Polar currents with a rising temperature, and Equatorial winds with a falling thermometer. By the end of the month summer had set in, and July opened with a few splendid days. On the 5th and 6th, the temperature suddenly fell; then followed six days of comparatively high temperature, succeeded by seven days of cold weather. Then came that magnifi- cent spell of hot weather which did much to raise the harvest-hopes of the farmers.

The heat sprang up, on the 20th, to eight degrees above the average; on the 22nd the thermometer stood at 82° from two in the afternoon till half-past eight at night. Next day the great heat culmi- nated and began to wane; and during the rest of the month the weather varied but little from its normal condition. August was curiously like July. In each month there were nineteen days above the average temperature, and twelve below it. The hot periods were the 7th and 8th, the 13th to the 16th, and the week ending the 28th. Frequent sudden falls of the thermometer characterized the month. Both these summer months were broken by severe thunder-storms. In the North of [ England and Scotland July brought great floods, which caused -immense destruction, la Aagnst the thunder-storms moved down to the southern part of the island; so that the excess of rainfall, which at ¥rant was less than a tenth of j an inch above the average in July, was an inch and three-quarters in excess in Anus! September was nearly as wet, and j was still more ungenial. The warmth was j below par on twenty-one days out of the thirty. The summer was thus a chilly one, and much wetter than that of 1872; in which June, July, August, and September, though all showing an excess of rain, had, with the exception of July, far less excess than the same months in 1873.

The contrast between 1872 and 1873 comes out, however, in the autumn months. The excess of rainfall in January, February, and March was much the same, and distributed over the months j in the same proportions, in both years.: In April, however, there was an excess in 1872, and a deficiency in 1873, while in May there was a surplus of two I inches and a half in 1872, and of much I less than an inch in. 1873. June was I somewhat more rainy in the latter year, jJuly rather less wet, and August and September were much more in excess of the average last year than the year before.

October was in both years a wet month, with two inches and three-quarters above the average in 1872, and two inches and a half in 1878, It was a boisterous month in both years—last year rather warm for the season, though a spell of cold weather reduced the average to about the mean temperature. In November the divergence from the former year began. | Last November had four cloudless days [ and scarcely any fog. The previous November had been one of universal elementary perturbation, with a fall of rain more than three inches and three- quarters above the average; last November had its storms, and an excess of rainfall, but only to nine-tenths of an inch above the two inches and a half which is the average of the month. This improvement was continued throughout December, when, as was the case in April and May,a minus quantity was registered in the rain-gauge.

In 1872 the wet season may be said to have culminated in one of the most rainy Decembers on record. The average rain- fall for the month in the previous four years was an inch and a half, but during that month over six inches and a half of rain came down upon the sodden fields.

Last December, on the contrary, less than an inch of rain fell, and the average of thirty-four previous years was two inches.

The year, however, brought an excess of rain. In Dr. ALLANTT'S figures we have had on 37,000,000 square acres of English soil about 8,700,000,000 tons of surplus water. But this three thousand seven hundred million tons is a mere drop compared with the extra rain of 1872, which amounted to sixty thousand million tons. Dr. ALLNATT expresses his regret that this vast amount of water has ran, to waste. He probably anticipates that a season of deficient rainfall will follow this period of excess. The inference from his figures seems to be that we reached the end of a long wet season in November last. We have certainly entered on a period of diminished rainfall, and may have before us a series of comparatively dry seasons. The fine weather of December—for Dr. AuaiAra tells us that even during the three days of the great fog, the sun shone brightly at Frant, out of a cloudless sky —and the bright opening of the new year, may be, like the improvement which took place in last April and May, a mere pause if a wet cycle, or as we hope, the dawn of pleasanter days.—The Daily News.