for the year 1884. xxi 



about Banks' Straits, or from some point at sea to the east- 

 ward of these places, and very probably about the locality 

 the "Helena" felt the shock. I regret I have got no 

 intelligence from the islands yet concerning the disturbances; 

 for any precise observation from there would greatly help in 

 giving a locus for the seismic centre. The evidence avail- 

 able, however, strongly supports the foregoing assumption. 

 While there is ample evidence of extensive old volcanic 

 action in the Australian group, we have always regarded 

 these regions (of course including Tasmania) as far removed 

 from any centres or line of seismic activity, and during my 

 thirty-three or thirty-four years' experience in this country 

 earthquake shocks have been of considerable rarity, and 

 always of very small intensity. These repeated and con- 

 tinued tremblings, therefore, constitute a new order of things, 

 and a problem for the geologist and physicist; but let us 

 hope they will not become sufficiently severe to present a 

 problem also to the architect, as they do in Japan. 



THE RED SUNSETS. 



We have not yet done with the red sunsets and afterglows, 

 although they always appear now with much less intensity 

 than formerly. The true cause of them appears to be still 

 an open question, but I think we may assume that the 

 " Krakatoa eruption theory" is not such a favourite as it was 

 six or eight months ago. It has been found out that red 

 sunsets and brilliant afterglows were not uncommon before 

 the Krakatoa outburst, as we in Australia well know, and I 

 dare say it will be eventually discovered that the great 

 catastrophe of Sunda Strait directed special attention to 

 peculiar atmospheric appearances, which after all were not 

 of any particular rarity. 



RAINFALL AND WATER CONSERVATION. 



The late disastrous droughts in the central districts of 

 Australia direct our attention to the questions of rainfall 



