522
The total rainfall for the year was 55.78 inches as compared with 73.73 inches in 1900 and an average of 77.2 inches during the past ten years. The wettest month was May with 14.10 inches, while there were also 14 inches of rain in the month of August; the driest month was January with only 0.685 inch. The greatest amount of rain which fell on any one day was 4.23 inches on April 7th, while no rain fell on 213 days of the year; the relative humidity of the atmosphere throughout the year was 75 per cent. as compared with 77 per cent. in the previous year. The average daily amount of sunshine throughout the year was 5.5 hours and on 35 days only was no sunshine recorded.
The above figures have been calculated from the monthly Reports issued by the Director of the Hongkong Observatory; the temperatures are taken at 108 feet above mean sea-level and at 4 feet above the grass.
The following table shows how uncertain has been the rain fall during the past twenty years :—
Inches.
1882,
73.36
1892,
Inches.
.. 90.97
1883,
.120.66
1893,
... 99.95
1884,
75.42
1894,
....104.25
1885,
.108.92
1895,
45.83
1886,
69.17
1896,
71.78
1887,
66.29
1897,
.100.03
1888,
...104.58
1898,
57.02
1889,
.119.72
1899,
72.70
1890,
... 70.93
1900,
73.73
1891,
.117.12
1901,
55.78
Average,.....92.617
Average.......77.204
In my Annual Report for 1899 I showed that the average rainfall during the decade ending that year was eleven and a half inches less than the average rainfall during the preceding decade. The above figures show that the average has fallen still further, for during the past decade it has been nearly fifteen and a half inches less than during that ending 1891. Any estimates of water-supply, therefore, based on previous records of rainfall are subject to a very considerable discount from this cause, while a continuons supply can only be assured by taking, as the basis of calculation, the lowest annual rain- fall of, say, the last twenty years.
GENERAL SANITARY CONDITION.
The Colony was again visited during the year by an epidemic of Bubonic Plague and in conse- quence it was decided to obtain from England the services of two distinguished experts in sanitation to report on its general sanitary condition; Professor SIMPSON, M.D., F.R.C.P., and Mr. OSBERT CHADWICK, M. INST. C.E., C.M.G., were accordingly appointed and are to visit the Colony early in 1902 and, it is hoped that the adoption of their recommendations will do much to free the Colony from these annual visitations of Bubonic Plague.
During the year the various existing Public Health Ordinances were consolidated, with but verbal amendments; with a view to prevent the raising of existing buildings to an inordinate height a short Ordinance was passed (No. 30 of 1901) providing that no existing building which does not at present exceed in height one and a half times the width of the street on which it fronts shall be so raised as to exceed that limit of height, and that no new building shall be erected to a greater height than one and a half times the width of the strect on which it fronts, unless the building at present occupying such site exceeds that height, in which case the new building may be carried up as high as the existing one so long as the scale contained in Ordinance 15 of 1894 is not exceeded. In other words an attempt has been made to check any further increase in the excessive surface crowding of the City, but it yet remains for some measure to be introduced which shall reduce this surface crowding to within more reasonable limits.
The question of the resumption of insanitary or obstructive buildings has been left in abeyance pending the Report of the experts, but it is essential that many of these buildings should be removed in order to open up, and admit light and air, to the many enclosed courts and alleys which abound in the City of Victoria.
There is still most urgent need for additional urinals throughout the Colony, only two or three new ones having been erected in connection with Chinese public latrines during the year 1901, while many more public latrines are also needed, to supply the wants of the Chinese community.