Sir,
On being invited to cite documentary evidence for his assertion that “in 1890–91 most of England was continuously under snow from 27 November to 21 January,” Mr. Bonacina tells us merely of a large meadow at the back of his boyhood home in a London suburb which, according to his recollection, remained white over exactly that period. And this after he has enjoined caution in drawing generalizations on snowfall from a limited number of stations. All regional climatic studies depend on “a grid in which must inevitably occur large meshes of unrepresented country”; outside Utopia we cannot have an observing post for every square mile. Official summaries and averages of rainfall, sunshine, temperature and other elements are necessarily thus derived. Is not the method equally valid for the Snow Survey with its copious data from a well-distributed host of observers, plus the returns courteously supplied to us by the Meteorological Office?
