Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 January 1909 — What's an Inch of Rain? [ARTICLE]

What's an Inch of Rain?

The rain fell in buckets, the thunder racketed terribly and the lightning drew zigzag lines of bright gold upon the violet sky. ‘So you, too. don’t know what an inch of rain is exactly,” said the weather clerk as he looked at his rain measuring instrument “Very few people do, it sems. I’ll explain it to you. “An acre is 6,272,640 square inches. An inch of water on an acre is therefore 6,272,640 cubic inches. That amount, at 227 cubic Inches to the gallon, equals 22,000 gallons, or 220,000 pounds, or 100 tons. “An inch of rain Is, in other words, rain falling at the rate of 100 tons to the acre.”—Philadelphia Bulletin. A remarkable bird found in Mexico is the bee martin, which has a trick of ruffling up the feathers on top of its head into the exact semblance of a beautiful flower, and when a bee cornea along to sip honey from the supposed flower it is snapped up by the bird.