196 



NA TURjz 



[ June 26, 1884 



present Government. It is therefore sincerely to b e 

 hoped that the forthcoming Exhibition at Edinburgh will 

 be the means of putting a new spoke in the wheel, and 

 that before the close of the Exhibition, or soon after, 

 something tangible may have resulted in making forestry 

 one of the branches of education either in distinctly con- 

 stituted forest schools, or in our present agricultural 

 colleges. 



It is satisfactory to know that the arrangements of the 

 Exhibition are in a forward state, and that, if the promises 

 which have been received by the executive are fulfilled, 

 the Exhibition will exceed the anticipations of the pro- 

 moters. John R. Jackson 



RAINFALL OF NEW SOUTH WALES 1 



I" TNDER the energetic direction of Mr. Russell the 

 *-^ investigation of the rainfall of New South Wales is 

 being prosecuted with much success, and the interest of 

 the colonists may now fairly be regarded as awakened to 

 the importance of the inquiry. This is evidenced by the 

 recent rapid increase of stations, the number of rain 

 stations for the five years ending 1882 being 96, 153, 191, 

 256, and 30S, having thus trebled during this brief interval. 

 A comparison of the maps of stations for 1878 and 1SS2 

 shows that the increase has been pretty evenly distributed 

 over the whole colony : and of particular importance is it 

 to note the spread of the rain-gauge over the extensive 

 regions which lie to the north and north-west of the 

 Murray River. 



Mr. Russell draws pointed attention, in the following 

 extract, to the practical value to the colonists of well kept 

 rain registers : — 



"As a proof of the necessity for the use of the rain- 

 gauge all over the cslony, not only for purposes of science, 

 but also as a necessary instrument on every run, I may 

 mention that on Goolhi station six gauges are kept on 

 various parts of the run, and the records range from I9'8l 

 inches to 2775 inches. It would obviously lead to a false 

 estimate of the grass the run would produce if only one 

 gauge had been used, and that one where only 19.81 

 inches were recorded. I hope that the facts which the 

 yearly records bring to light will have the effect of awaken- 

 ing those interested to the immense importance of collect- 

 ing these statistics carefully and at once, so thai every 

 year will add to the knowledge which will be of such value 

 in forming estimates of the seasons which are to come, 

 and of the possibility of conserving water." 



Lately much speculation was indulged in, and various 

 schemes were proposed of increasing by artificial means 

 the rainfall of New South Wales, particularly in seasons 

 of drought when day after day the sky becomes covered 

 with dark, dense-looking clouds which regularly pass away 

 without a drop of rain. In these cases, science can as yet 

 hold out no hopes to the agriculturist. The successful 

 instances of rain-production by artificial means have 

 occurred when the atmosphere in the district where the 

 experiment was made was at or near the point of satura- 

 tion, a state of things which does not exist in the arid 

 plains of the interior of Australia under the meteorological 

 conditions when clouds daily darken the skies and as 

 regularly mock the expectation of the farmer. 



It must then be to a judicious and skilful cropping of 

 the rainfall that the Australian farmer must look for the 

 supply of his wants in the dry season and still more in 

 seasons of exceptional drought. Now, as contributions 

 towards the solution of this problem, the annual rainfall 

 reports of Mr. Russell are simply invaluable. These 

 reports give the rainfall and total days of rain for each 

 month and for the year, to which is added the mean 

 annual rainfall and rainy days calculated from previous 

 years' observations at each place available for the purpose. 



' " Results of Rain and River Observations made in New South Wales 

 during 1878-S2." By H. C. Russell, B.A., Government Astronomer for New 



The annual rainfall for each year is represented on a large- 

 map of the colony, 22 by 26 inches, where the fall for each 

 station is entered in its place as a black spot, the diameter 

 of which is proportioned to the quantity of rain. By this 

 device, the eye takes in readily and at a glance the distri- 

 bution of the rainfall for the year. The comparative 

 results of the five years for the different districts of the 

 colony are most instructive. 



Owing to its position on the globe and its physical con- 

 figuration, New South Wales presents extremely different 

 climates according to the varying amounts of the rainfall. 

 Thus at Antony, on the coast near the borders of Queens- 

 land, the mean annual rainfall amounts to 65*15 inches ; 

 whereas at Mount Poole, in the extreme north-west, it is 

 only 8'3S inches. Eor the nine years beginning with 

 1874, an approximation to the annual rainfall of the 

 colony for each year has been calculated by Mr. Russell, 

 the results for the separate years being 33'46, 29*38, 27'66, 

 20-48, 25-05, 3075, "9'93, 2073, and 20 11 inches, each of 

 the last three years showing a marked deficiency. Now 

 the interesting point is this, and it is a peculiarity which 

 every other country possesses, but particularly those which 

 exhibit climates so diversified as New South Wales, viz. 

 that the rainfall of any month, or of any year, is very far 

 from being equably distributed. The amounts of the ex- 

 cesses above, or the defects from, the average, tend really 

 to partition the country into several well-defined rain 

 districts for the time, these being determined apparently 

 by river basins, watersheds, and other features of its 

 physical configuration taken in connection with their rela- 

 tions to the thunderstorms and the rain-bringing winds. 

 It is quite in the future, as an outcome of Mr. Russell's 

 work, that the settlers in different parts of the colony will 

 receive specific directions as to the cropping of their rain- 

 fall so as to provide even against the recurring calamitous 

 droughts of the Australian climates. 



An interesting feature of the reports are the diagrams, 

 howing, by curves, the heights for each day of the Darling, 

 Murrumbidgee, and Murray Rivers. A heavy flood oc- 

 curred at Bourke, on the Darling River, on February 4, 

 10S2, and reached its maximum, 26 feet 2 inches, by the 

 end of the month, and the river did not fall to its summci 

 level until April 5. This flood was occasioned by heavy 

 tropical rains, from February 1 to 7, that fell over the 

 northern part of the Darling watershed, which took two 

 months to drain off, as is proved by the fact that little or 

 no rain fell during the latter half of February and all 

 March. In a few years these systematic observations of 

 the heights of the principal rivers of Australia will furnish 

 invaluable data for the determination of not a few im- 

 portant problems of meteorology and physical geography, 

 which the marked insular character of this continent is so 

 well suited to elucidate. 



CALCUTTA BOTANIC GARDEN 

 CIR JOSEPH HOOKER has kindly placed at our 

 ■^ disposal the following letter on the Calcutta Botanic 

 Garden : — 



" Our beautiful garden is now looking very nice. Let 

 me tell you what I am looking out upon. On the right 

 is a fine Terminalia Cala/>pa,a mass of dark green foliage 

 from base to summit, its branches with a quantity of 

 Soranthns longiflonis on them. Further off, towering in 

 the distance, is a clean-stemmed, stately-looking Diptero- 

 carpus alatus, its branches the roost of vultures and 

 chcels. Almost as tall, to one side of the Dipterocarp, 

 is a beautiful Terminalia Arunja, with mahoganies and 

 the golden-flowered Peltophorum in front. Dillenia 

 pentagyna in front, and Morinda tinctoria covered with 

 masses of / 'anda Roxburghii. There is a fine Adina 

 1 -ordi folia, one of the monarchs of the garden ; its straight, 

 strong stem, disdaining to bend in the sudden squalls and 

 rain-storms, bears evidence of having been topped before, 



