76
The highest recorded temperature during the year was 92,2° F. on July 27th, and the lowest 40.5° F. on February 4th.
The total rainfall for the year was 97.50 inches as compared with 55.78 inches in 1901 and an average of 77.86 inches during the past ten years. The wettest month was May with 26.73 inches, while there were also 26.5 inches of rain in the month of August; the driest month was February with only 0.02 inch. The greatest amount of rain which fell on any one day was 8.06 inches on August 2nd, while no rain fell on 223 days of the year; the relative humidity of the atmosphere throughout the year was 75.6 per cent. as compared with 75 per cent. in the previous year while during March to August it averaged continuously over 82 per cent. The average daily amount of sunshine throughout the year was 5.3 hours and on 51 days no sunshine was 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 rainfall during the past twenty years:--
Inches.
Inches.
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
1892,
90.97
1902,
97.50
Average,...... 94.38
Average,...... 77.86
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 more than sixteen and a half inches less than during that ending 1892. Any estimates of water- supply, therefore, based on previous records of rainfall are subject to a very considerable discount from this cause, while a continuous supply can only be assured by taking, as the basis of calculation, the lowest annual rainfall of, say, the last twenty years.
GENERAL SANITARY CONDITION.
The Colony was visited in the early part of the year by two eminent Sanitarians-Professor SIMPSON, M.D., F.R.C.P., and Mr. OSBERT CHADWICK, M. INST. C.E., C.M.G., who had been specially deputed by the Secretary of State to report on its general sanitary condition. Several most interesting reports were submitted by them, which fully bore out the statements which have been reiterated in these Annual Reports as to the urgent need of better lighting and ventilation for the Chinese dwellings, and as to the serious extent of the surface-crowding in the City of Victoria. As a result of these Reports a Public Health and Buildings Bill is still before the Legislative Council which will, it is hoped, lead, when enacted, to a steady and continuous improvement in the general sanitary condition of the Colony, by its provisions for the better construction of buildings to be hereafter erected. This improvement in the construction of new buildings must, however, go hand in hand with schemes for the resumption of blocks of insanitary property and for the removal of obstructive buildings, especially in the City of Victoria, where the surface crowding varies in the several Health Districts from 64 to 832 persons per acre.
The provision of public sanitary conveniences, such as latrines, urinals and bath-houses, does not keep pace with the rapid growth of the population (by immigration), and many more of these are yet required to fulfil the needs of the teeming Chinese population of the Colony.