162 



i 



has been well shown by Sir Daniel Morris/' In his lecture t 

 before the Society of Agriculture and Commerce at Kingston T 

 Jamaica, he quoted some correspondence from South Africa 

 mentioned in J. C. Brown's Forests and Moisture (1877), p. 148, 

 which we give in its entirety: " This season has been unusually 



j j 



hot and dry along the coast, and all around Graham's Town 

 we have been unable to grow anything all this summer for 

 want of rain. The springs are all failing. You may, perhaps, 

 know the place of Mr. J. J. Stone, on the top of the hill on the 

 Cowie Road, toward the sea, marked by a quantity of gum 

 trees, on the ridge of the high hills to the south-east of Graham's 

 Town. Well, all through the summer we had only light, misty 

 rain, just enough to dampen the grass and not enough to wet 

 the ground; but these trees of Mr. Stone's have there converted 

 the mist into rain. They have scarcely felt any effects of dry 

 weather; the vegetables and flowers have there grown all the 

 summer without watering; there the tanks have always been 

 full; and that is the only place of which I have heard, that it 

 lias been so within five and twenty miles of Graham's Town. 



In November, 1901. Dr. Marloth,+ of Cape Town, conducted 

 some experiments for ascertaining* the amount of moisture 

 deposited from the south-east clouds, which appear around Table 

 Mountain during the dry and practically rainless summer 

 months, forming the well-known f€ Table-cloth." His results 

 were little short of sensational and u excited considerable 

 astonishment and wonder." § Dr. Marloth placed two rain 

 gauges on the top of Table Mountain about midway between 

 the east and west ends of the upper plateau. One gauge was 

 left open in the usual way, the other " surmounted with a frame- 

 work representing a bunch of reeds. "|| The first experiments no 

 proving satisfactory, owing to a combination of circumstances, 

 Dr. Marloth continued with the experiment on December 21, 



1902. " The first reading of the season was made on January 1, 



1903, when it was found that the open gauge contained nothing, 

 whilst the other one showed 15*22 in. of moisture, and that for 

 a period of 10 days. The next reading took place on the 11th of 

 January. The open gauge was again dry, the other one showing 

 14-64 in. In 21 days the reeds had condensed moisture corres- 

 ponding to 29'86 in. of rain, while the open gauge showed 



nothing The observations came to an untimely end on 



the 15th of February, because a week afterwards the gauges 

 were found to be destroyed The result is that ..... 



in 56 days, the gauge with the reeds had condensed a quantity 



of moisture equivalent to 74-87 in. of rain, and that quantity 

 was recorded although the In 4 three times the gauge had over 

 flown. 



" If one considers that the average annual rainfall at Cape 



* A Report upon the Present Position and Prospects of the Agricultural 

 Resources of the Island of St. Helena (Colonial Office, Jan. 1884). 



t Lecture on the Occurrence of Droughts, Kingston, Jamaica, July, 1885. 

 J Marloth in Trans. S. Afr. Phil. Soc. siv. 403-408 (1903). 

 § C. M. Stewart, I.e. 413. 

 j| Bestionaceae. 



