28 PRKSIDRNTIAI, ADDRESS SECTION A. 



Xor is it for the success of weather forecasting only that 

 a centra] meteorological office is greatly needed for South Africa, 

 but even more for the progress of the general meteorology of 

 this sub-continent. Individual investigators have done great 

 work in meteorology during the last century, but they would 

 have done very little if the material on which they mostly 

 worked had not been collected and prepared for discussion by 

 the various central meteorological offices. There are many 

 problems in tlie South African weather which await solution, 

 and which have not even been tackled. Yet their solution would 

 be of great economic value to South Africa. We have read lately 

 in the press of a controversy in political circles on the expediency 

 or inexpediency of encouraging emigration to South Africa. The 

 political side of the ([ues'tion does not come within the scope of 

 Section A, but there are other sides to the c^uestion. If immi- 

 gration is to help us to make South Africa one of the great 

 nations of the Southern Hemisphere, we must expect that the 

 stream of immigrants will be directed towards the vast tenant- 

 less hinterland in which, according to Rhodes, lies the future of 

 South Africa. ^'ou have come through a great part of this 

 hinterland, h^rom tlK> \'aal River to Eulawayo you have come 

 through 700 miles of it ; to the Zambesi you will travel through 

 another 300 miles of it. In this long stretch of 1,000 miles you 

 do not see a drop of water, and you might go miles east or miles 

 west and find practically the same state of things. We ho])e 

 to see one day a ])rosperous population along this branch of the 

 Cape to Cairo line, but meanwhile we must not forget that many 

 a farmer has been ruined and nearly starved on farms averag- 

 ing from five to ten sc|uare miles in this very hinterland through 

 whicli the railway passes, and that because the farmer's chief 

 enemy in Central South Africa is the climate. For six months 

 or more he can do next to nothing; the climate renders his 

 efi'orts practical!}- useless. The earth does not under our sky 

 recui)erate its strength during the winter months, absorb 

 moisture, store it up to have it ready for useful work at the 

 dawn of spring. Xo, for six months it undergoes an uninter- 

 rupted process of exhaustion, and when our spring comes there 

 is in the greater part of the hinterland no apparent trace of 

 moisture left in the soil for several feet below the root level of 

 the yearly plants, often not even on the banks of what on the 

 maps are marked as rivers. The farmer has to make his living 

 ancl his profits out of the five or six rainy months. And what 

 can he be told about this season ? He can be told that he may 

 on an average expect 25 inches of rain during the season, but 

 that this ma}' mean anything between 12 and 35 in the same 

 region. And if he asks what he may reckon on for this season, 

 lie must be told that nobody can know. He may be told that the 

 rains may be expected to start at the end of October, but he 

 must be warned, at the same time, that years have been known 

 with no useful rains before December, January, and even 



