AUSTRALIAN DROUGHTS. 35 



vals of a few years, and sometimes have been 

 known to continue for two or three years in succession. 

 Thus "hardly any rain fell in the years 1814 and 

 1815 -and again in 1827, 1828, and 1829, there was 

 a long 1 period of drought, during which the beds of 

 deep and rapid streams became dry for miles; every 

 blade of grass was destroyed over large tracts of 

 country, and cattle perished by thousands." * 



The remedy for this state of things in the inhabited 

 districts is the artificial storage of water by means of 

 dams, etc. which in many places has proved most 

 . successful. 



Experience has shewn that human skill and enter- 

 prise are capable, when scientifically directed, of 

 triumphing over apparently insuperable difficulties; 

 and that a sure but gradual change for the better is 

 brought about by stocking and human occupation. 

 That an immense area of waste lands, which were at 

 first believed to be irreclaimable, have been already 

 improved and rendered productive, throughout the 

 great plains in the interior of Australia, is a fact so 

 well known as hardly to need repetition. 



These lands, up to the time of their occupation, 

 had lain throughout the ages untenanted, and practi- 

 cally untrodden by heavy beasts of any kind. The 

 poverty of the Australian fauna, in this respect, is 

 well known, both the horse and the ox, as well as the 

 sheep, having been introduced by human agency. The 

 benefits which the importation of these quadrupeds was 

 destined to confer upon Australia, were incalculable. 



" Under the ceaseless tread of myriads of hoofs, the loose 



* Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel for Australia, 

 -edited by Alfred R. Wallace, 1879, p. 34. 



