90 THE CLIMATE OF AUSTRALASIA 



part, and studied the hydrography of the 

 Southern Ocean, with the same methods which 

 have yielded such profitable results in the 

 North Atlantic, and to India. 



In meteorology each continent must work 

 out its own salvation. Europe may help us 

 with methods, but we must apply them our- 

 selves, to our own waters, before we can share 

 in the rewards. Patiently and excellently 

 meteorologists all over Australia are recording 

 the daily changes of our weather ; but far out 

 in the Southern Ocean, the fundamental pro- 

 cesses that are determining the nature of the 

 seasons a year or two years ahead are passing 

 unnoticed, and unknown. Australia has spent 

 vast sums in irrigation works that have failed 

 through lack of water, and undertakes the 

 duty of recording the present weather, but, 

 for the sake of some ^300 or ^500 a year, 

 we are leaving unstudied the causes that 

 produce and control it. We spend money 

 freely in defence against hypothetical enemies 

 who may never come ; while we stint the 

 Intelligence Department, whose duty it is to 

 watch the one foe whose onslaught is certain 

 and merciless. What could add more to the 

 commercial prosperity of Australasia than 

 warnings to our vast agricultural and pastoral 

 interests, whether next year our wide fields 

 will be paralysed by drought or washed by 

 a soil destroying deluge. The apparent fickle- 

 ness and severity of our climatic changes 



