The Cycle Year 1905 and the Coming Season. 249 



In Bhodesia the rains during September and October have been 

 less than usual, with consequently higher temperatures. Wind 

 velocity normal. 



So far this season in the Transvaal has been drier at most stations 

 than last year, but there has been more rain at Pretoria, though less 

 at Johannesburg. At Pilgrim's Best and other eastern stations 

 there has been so far considerably less rain this spring than last 

 spring. 



Lake Chrissie, in one of the wettest parts of the eastern Trans- 

 vaal, affords a practical illustration of the effects of the recent 

 droughts. The case is mentioned in a report just issued by the 

 Transvaal Meteorological Department. " There is a legend among 

 the Boers of the district that if ever Lake Chrissie dried up the 

 Dutch people would lose their independence. During the latter 

 part of the war the lake was perfectly dry for the first time during 

 the memory of man." I visited Lake Chrissie towards the end of 

 the winter of 1903. It was then a noble sheet of water, but, I was 

 informed, shallower than in the old times. In 1904 Lake Chrissie 

 dried up, and it has been dry again this last winter of 1905. 



Bains in the Nile Basin. 



The Director-General of the Survey Department, Cairo, writing 

 under date, November 8, 1905, states that this year's Nile flood has 

 been markedly below the average. The rains both in Abyssinia and 

 in the equatorial Nile regions were weak and late. " At the end of 

 the rainy season there was a general improvement, but still the 

 Abyssinian rains of September and October did not reach the 

 average." There was also some sign of improvement in the rains 

 over the equatorial lakes and Northern Uganda as the rains retired 

 southward. The Director-General summarises this season's rains 

 thus : — 



"The rains of 1905 in the Nile basin were very late and weak; 

 little improvement occurred during the season, giving a flood con- 

 siderably below the average ; some late improvement may have 

 taken place in the extreme southern parts of the basin, but this is 

 uncertain." 



The Indian Monsoon. 



The Indian Monsoon, except in Burmah, Bengal, Assam, and 

 Bihar, has been a bad one, and the country was only saved from 

 famine by a timely burst of rainfall at the end of September. In 

 the Burmah-Bihar area the average excess was 12-5 per cent, above 

 the normal. Elsewhere — that is to say over the greater portion of 



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