1
Elias climbed to the station roof after
2
the night storm and lifted the two rain
3
gauges from their brackets. The results
4
looked impossible: the sheltered cylinder,
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set behind a low wall, held only a thin
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film of water. The exposed gauge on the
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open corner held an unusually high
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but measurable amount. Neither total
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matched the electronic record that ticked
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on the indoor console.
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He first blamed the wind, which often
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drove rain past the sheltered rim and
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into the open cylinder. Then he sat at
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the bench and lined up the timestamps
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in the logbook with the console printout.
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The exposed gauge's paper label still
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showed yesterday's reading, written in
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his own hand before dusk. No one had
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emptied that cylinder before the new
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rain began, so two storms had been
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combined in one glass. The sheltered
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gauge, by contrast, had been reset at
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dusk and had started the night empty.
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Once the earlier water was subtracted
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from the exposed total, the three records
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agreed within the limits of the instruments.
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Elias drew a narrow line through the
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combined figure, wrote the corrected value
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beside it, and added an initial box next
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to every collection time so the next
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reset would leave a name as well as a
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number.
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Two clear cylinders had told different
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stories about one storm. The instruments
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had worked; the routine had not. Elias
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copied the corrected chart and carried
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it downstairs to the younger observers
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who shared the night watch. He spread
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the pages on the table without claiming
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that careful reading afterward would
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have been enough.
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Together they assigned one person to
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empty each gauge, one to read it, and
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both to initial the entry before leaving
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the roof. The extra marks took only
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seconds, but they made the sequence
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visible enough to check against the
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clock on the wall.
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At the next storm, the readings differed
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again. This time the signed log showed
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both cylinders had begun empty. Wind had
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kept some rain from the sheltered gauge,
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just as Elias had first suspected. He
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could examine exposure without doubting
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the procedure. He circled both totals,
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noted the wind direction beside them,
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and left the difference intact for the
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monthly review, when the station compared
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the manual cylinders with the electronic
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trace and asked which disagreements
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still needed an explanation.