TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION £. 441 
those of Australia, it is found that Bombay, Calcutta, Colombo, Singapore, and 
Hong Kong are the only cities whose rainfall exceeds that of Sydney and 
Brisbane. Perth has a greater annual rainfall than New York, and more than 
that of twenty-eight of the forty-two cities used in the comparison. Hobart 
nearly equals London, which Melbourne exceeds by an inch, while eleven of 
the forty-two places considered have less rain than Hobart. 
The distribution of average annual rainfall over the Commonwealth and 
the United Kingdom in thousands of square miles is as follows :— 
Australia British Isles 
Under 10 in. . : 3 5 ; . 1,045 nil 
10in. tol5in. . : : ‘ On nil 
15in. to20in. . : : ANG nil 
20 in. to 30in. . , A ; S503 24 
30 in. to40in. . : r F ‘ 199 42 
Over 40 in. . . A d 3 ; 160 55 
The average area under wheat in the United Kingdom during the years 
1910, 1911, and 1912 was 1,926,040 acres, and the average yield 59,436,392 
bushels; while in the Commonwealth for the same period the area under wheat 
was 7,379,980 acres, and the average yield 86,243,133 bushels, a difference in 
the total yield in favour of Australia of 26,806,741 bushels. In Australia wheat- 
growing under ordinary conditions is generally considered a safe and payable 
proposition when 10 inches of rain and over falls from the month of April to 
that of October inclusive. There are in all 484,330 square miles of country with 
10 inches of rainfall and over during the wheat-growing period. The output 
of wheat has been steadily increasing from year to year, and there are vast 
possibilities of future development in this direction. 
The climatic history and prosperity of the last ten years or so contradict 
emphatically the preconceived notion that Australia is the particular drought- 
stricken and precarious area of the earth’s surface. These misconceptions of 
the true character of the country have been held in the developmental stages, 
to a greater or less extent, in the early histories in the majority of all lands 
and in the colonisation of newly discovered territories; e.g., see history of 
colonisation of U.S. America and early Egyptian history. The truth of the 
matter about Australia’s rainfall is that (1) it is generally ample for 
pastoral and agricultural industries over two-thirds of its area; (2) that different 
regions have distinct seasonal dry and wet periods. These must be more fully 
recognised and industrial operations adapted accordingly ; (3) it is subject in 
part, but never in the whole, to prolonged periods when the rainfall is short 
of the seasonal average. Australia is not peculiar in this respect. It follows, 
therefore, that as the so far undeveloped country becomes populated and put 
to profitable use, the general wealth of the community as a whole will steadily 
increase. 
A model representing the relative rainfall over Australia has been constructed 
at the Commonwealth Weather Bureau on a horizontal scale of 133 miles to 
1 inch and a vertical scale of 10 inches to 1 centimetre. 
It shows at a glance how the annual rainfall is distributed, from the small 
precipitation over the far interior to the fringe of high rainfall around the 
greater portion of the coast-line, culminating on the eastern side in a great 
peak indicating the annual precipitation over the Harvey Creek and Innisfail 
district, resulting from the prevailing south-east trade winds carrying the 
moisture against the mountain ranges just inside the coast. 
The fringe of relatively high rainfall along the eastern and south-eastern 
coasts of the continent as the result of the elevated contours near the coast in 
those regions is also striking. 
The effect of the monsoonal rains over Northern Australia is very apparent 
from the model, which shows the gradual increase of rainfall from under 10 
inches in the interior to over 60 inches on the north coast. 
The manner in which the prevailing westerly trade winds carry moisture 
London, Madras, Madrid, Marseilles, Moscow, Naples, New York, Ottawa, 
Paris, Pekin, Quebec, Rome, San Francisco, Shanghai, Singapore, Stockholm, 
Petrograd, Tokyo, Vienna, Vladivostock, and Washington. 
