The following quotation induces me to put a Query to the numerous scientific readers of your widely-circulated publication:

"It is a remarkable circumstance that an unprecedented quantity of rain has fallen during the last year (1852) all over the world,—England, Ireland, Europe generally, Africa, India, and even in Australia."

Query, Is it anywhere recorded that so widespread a rainfall has been previously noticed? It is said that excessive rainfall has been general all over the world; and it would appear to have been general over a great portion of the land. This, however, does not constitute the whole world. The area of our globe is composed of about four-fifths water to one-fifth land; so that an excess of rain might fall upon every square mile of land, and yet the average rainfall of the whole world not be exceeded. This is an important truth, and should be generally understood. Taking the surface of the whole world, there is probably, year by year, the same amount of sunshine and heat, the same quantity of evaporation, and the same volume of rainfall; but there is inequality of distribution. We find a dry summer in America, and a wet one in Europe; excessive wet in the south of Europe, with excessive drought in the north; with similar excesses over much more limited areas. This case holds good even for the extraordinary year of 1852. Excess of rain has fallen on most of the land over the earth's surface; but there has been a minimum on the great oceans; as see the accounts of the fine weather, light winds, and calms, experienced in the voyages to Australia.

The question of general equality and local excesses may now, through our commerce, have that attention given to it which has hitherto been impossible. It is well worthy of study.

Robert Rawlinson.

BAPTIST VINCENT LAVALL.

I have in my possession a manuscript of about six hundred pages, entitled "Lavall's Tour across the American Continent, from the North Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean, in a more southern Latitude than any yet attempted: performed in the Years 1809 and 1810." A map of the route accompanies it.

The accounts of the country, and of the Indian tribes, correspond with what we learn from other sources; and gentlemen of information in Indian affairs believe the work to be the genuine production of a person who has been over the ground described.

According to this work, Lavall was a native of Philadelphia, and born in 1774. His father, who was a royalist, settled in Upper Canada, and engaged in the fur trade. In 1809 Baptist Vincent Lavall visited England to receive a legacy left him by a relation. Here he was persuaded to join a vessel fitting out for the purpose of trading in the North Pacific. It was a schooner of about two hundred tons, called the Sea Otter, commanded by Captain Niles. This vessel was lost upon the coast of Oregon, on the 15th of August, 1809, whilst Lavall and three of the crew were on shore hunting. They made their way across the continent to New Orleans.

Can any information be furnished from any custom-house in England as to the Sea Otter, Captain Niles?

William Duane.

Philadelphia.

GRAVES OF MICKLETON, CO. GLOUCESTER.

There are three portraits engraved by Vertue, which give the pedigree of this family thus far:

The title engraved on the plate states that the first Richard Graves given above, was twice married, and had six sons and thirteen daughters. It does not give the Christian names of any of the children, and leaves it uncertain whether the Richard Graves who died in 1731 was a child of the first or second marriage. This last-mentioned Richard was an antiquary of some note, and a correspondent of Hearne, who calls him "Gravesius noster."

Query 1. Is the full pedigree of this family anywhere to be had? 2. Is there a record of any of the six sons of the Richard who died in 1669 having settled in Ireland, as a soldier or otherwise, in the time of the Commonwealth? According to Mr. Editor's excellent arrangement, I transmit to him a stamped envelope, and shall feel much obliged to any correspondent of "N. & Q." who will give me the desired information. In the life of the Rev. Richard Graves, a younger son of Richard the antiquary (Public Characters, Dublin, 1800 p. 291.), it is stated that his collections for the History of the Vale of Gresham came, after his death, into the hands of James West, Esq., President of the Royal Society, at whose death they were purchased by the Earl of Shelburne, A.D. 1772. Query, Are they still in existence?

James Graves.

Kilkenny.

SEARSON'S POEMS.

The Query of G. C. (Vol. vi., p. 578.) relative to Mrs. Mackey's Poems, has induced me to trouble you with a similar one respecting the author of a volume in my possession. It is entitled Mount Vernon, a Poem, &c. &c., by John Searson, formerly of Philadelphia, Merchant; Philadelphia, printed for the author by Folwell. After the title-page (which is too long to be given in extenso) follows a dedication to General Washington, in which the author, after recording that he last returned to America from Ireland in 1796, and that having been established for several years at Philadelphia as a merchant, he had been subjected to unforeseen losses in trade and merchandize, proceeds as follows:

"Having a pretty good education in my youth, from an uncle, a clergyman of the Church of England, I published two poems in Ireland, was well received, and two publications since my last arrival in America, having disposed of the last copy of one thousand, Art of Contentment, and did myself the honour to visit your Excellency 15th May last [1799], so as to obtain an adequate idea of Mount Vernon, wishing to compose a poem on that beautiful seat, which I now most humbly dedicate to your Excellency, with your likeness," &c.

Next follows a "Preface to the readers of Mount Vernon, a Poem," in which he says:

"I published a rural, romantic, and descriptive poem of Down Hill, the seat of the Earl of Bristol, Bishop of Londonderry, in Ireland; for which the gentlemen of that country actually gave me a guinea per copy, and Sir George Hill, from Dublin, gave me five guineas in the city of Londonderry; more, I am assured, as feeling from my having seen better days, than from the intrinsic value of it."

Besides Mount Vernon, the book contains several other poems, &c., and extends to eighty-three pages, 8vo., with four pages subsequently inserted at the end. It is, I believe, a very scarce book in America, and the copy I possess is probably unique in this country. Like Mrs. Mackey's poems, it seems to have been written in earnest, and it is impossible within the limits of an article of this nature to give an adequate idea of the vein of self-complacency which pervades the book, or of the high estimation in which the author evidently held his own productions both in prose and verse.

A few quotations illustrative of his descriptive powers must suffice:

"Mount Vernon! I have often heard of thee,

And often wish'd thy beauties for to see."—P. 9.