256 JOHN BARLING. 
converted it into a large lake. On this occasion (I have 
not been able to ascertain the exact date) it is reported 
that 8 inches of rain fell. About this time also, the Paroo 
River discharged its flood waters into the Darling River, 
an event before unknown by white men, and not since 
repeated. But great as these rains were, they are small 
when compared with those on the Khasi Hills, already 
referred to, there 30 inches of rain for five successive days 
have been recorded. 
Compare this with what are called heavy rains in Great 
Britain and elsewhere. At Camberwell near London on 
1st August, 1846, some 3 inches of rain fell in two hours 
seventeen minutes; in London on 13 April, 1878, 45 inches; 
in Cumberland, on 27 November, 1878, 65 inches; at Joyeuse, 
France, in 22 hours, 31 inches; at Genoa, in 24 hours, 30 
inches; at Gibraltar, in 26 hours, 33 inches; at Sydney, 
the greatest fall in any one day, was on 25th February, 
1873, when 9 inches was recorded, and on 28th May, 1889, 
when 8 inches of rain fell. 
Going further north, we find that Geraldton, Queensland, 
holds the record for uniformly great rainfall for all Australia. 
The falls there going up as high as 212 inches in 1894, whilst 
the lowest recorded there was 70 inches in 1902. No 
wonder that engineers look with longing eyes to the water 
power at present going to waste at the Barron Falls in the 
locality. On the adjacent coast of Papua a remarkable 
variation in rainfall is to be noticed. Port Moresby has a 
comparatively small rainfall, whereas at a few miles on 
either side—at Daru, near the mouth of the Fly River, on 
the one side, and at Samarai on the other, the fall is large. 
Does the deficiency at Port Moresby in any way account 
for the excess at Geraldton? Coming round to Palmerston 
in the Northern Territory, the rainfall there is good and 
with marked regularity, the first and last three months of 
