13 



— in Basutoland, in the Orange River Free State, in 

 Gxiqualand West, in the Transvaal Territory, in Zululand, 

 at Natal, and in the Transkei Territory. 



Extract from Preface. — 'Appended to the Report of the Colonial 

 Botanist at the Cape of Good Hope for 1866 was an abstract of a Memoir 

 prepared on the Hydrology of South Africa, which has since been 

 embodied in a volume which has been published on that subject, and an 

 abstract of a Memoir prepared on Irrigation and its application to 

 agricultural operations in South Africa, which embraced a Eeport on 

 the Water Supply of the Colony ; its sources, its qnantity, the modes of 

 irrigation required in different circumstances, the facilities for the adop- 

 tion of 'these in different districts, and the difficulties, physical and 

 other, in the way of works of extensive irrigation being carried out 

 there, and the means of accomplishing these which are at command. 



' In the following volume is embodied that portion of the Memoir 

 which related to the water supply, and the existing facilities for the 

 storage of this, with reports relative to this which were subsequently 

 received, and similar information in regard to lands beyond the Colony 

 of the Cape of Good Hope, which it has been sought to connect with the 

 Colony by federation, or otherwise ; and the information relative to 

 irrigation has been transferred to a Report on the Rivers of the Colony, 

 and the means of controlling floods, of preventing inundations, of 

 regulating the flow of rivers, and utilising the water by irrigation 

 otherwise. 



'In the series of volumes to which this belongs its place is immedi- 

 ately after that on the Hydrology of South Africa, which contains 

 details of the former hydrographic condition of the Cape of Good Hope, 

 and of causes of its present aridity, with suggestions of appropriate 

 remedies for this aridity ; and it has been prepared to show that, not 

 in a vague and general use of the terms, but in strict accordance with 

 the statement, the severe, protracted, and extensive droughts, and 

 destructive floods and inundations, recorded in the former volume, find 

 their counterpart in constantly alternating droughts and deluges in 

 every district of the Colony, — and that, in every so-called division of it, 

 notwithstanding the deluges, there were protracted sufferings from 

 drought, and, notwithstanding the aridity, there is a supply of water 

 at command, with existing facilities for the storage of the superabundant 

 supply which at present proves productive of more evil than good.' 



Statement by Reviewer in European Mail : — ' Dr Brown is well known- 

 at the Cape, for in the exercise of his duties he travelled over the prin- 

 cipal part of it, and much, if not indeed the substance, of the bulky 

 volume before us, has been before the Cape public in the form of Reports 

 to the local Government. . " As these reports have been commented upon 

 over and over again by the local press there is little left for us to say 

 beyond the fact that the author reiterates his opinion that the only 

 panacea for the drought is to erect dams and other irrigation works for 

 the storage of water when the rains come down. There can be no doubt 



