TRACTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, &c. 43 



impossible to account for the uncertainty in the fall of rain. 

 Most countries whether mountainous or flat are subject to it : 

 and it would seem from experience and comparisons, that the 

 variations which have taken place, have sometimes been eftected 

 by the operation of some general cause. The severe drought 

 felt here in 1791 and 1792 was far more calamitous in India. 

 Doctor Anderson states, in a letter to Colonel Kyd, dated the 

 9th of August, 1792, that owing to a failure of rain, during the 

 above two years, one half of the inhabitants in the northern cir- 

 cars had perished by famine ; " and the remainder were so feeble 

 " and weak, that on the report of rice coming from the Malabar 

 " coast, 5000 poor people left Rajamundry, and very few of them 

 '* reached the sea-side, although the distance is only 50 miles." 

 The Doctor further observes " that betwixt the latitudes 16° and 

 " 18° on the coast of Coromandel, there was so little rain during 

 " the years 1764, 1765, and 1766, that the country was desolated 

 " by famine." It appears by Mr. Bryan Edwards's History of 

 the West Indies, that the season of 1791-2 were unusually dry at 

 the island of Montserrat. 



It will be observed, by the extracts I have given, that no 

 notice is taken of dry seasons at those periods ; and that the 

 greatest continuance of seasons uncomplained of, was betwixt 

 the years 1724 and 1738. This interval was fourteen years. 

 Now as there has been no serious drought since 1792, it should 

 be kept in mind that the present interval of favourable seasons, 

 being nineteen years, already exceeds any other on record. 

 We know not how soon another visitation may take place. Let 

 us then be wise and prudent, from dear bought experience, and 

 use every means in our power to be prepared for it. 



\bth August, 1811. 



