218 J. H. MAIDEN. 



barking that followed the Free Selection before Survey 

 Act of 1861. He proceeds, " How is it that in India, where 

 trees are conserved instead of destroyed, drought of extreme 

 severity overtakes the country, and this too at times 

 coincident with our droughts in Australia." He also gives 

 instances of droughts in the Pacific Islands and South 

 Africa. 



Mr. Russell formally reported on the subject and his 

 report was laid before Parliament on 30th November 1898. 

 He quotes the report of the Meteorological Society of 

 Edinburgh in 1859, in connection with the Forests and 

 Rainfall question, which stated that "there were no 

 grounds for thinking the rainfall of Western Europe was 

 getting less." He adds — 



"An elaborate investigation of the rainfall records by Mr. 

 Symons (the highest authority on such matters in England) had 

 led to a similar conclusion. An investigation carried out in the 

 United States by the Smithsonian Institution resulted in a decision 

 that no evidence was to be found of a decreasing rainfall, and in 

 America they had destroyed forests wholesale. Professor Marsh 

 in his book " The earth as modified by human action," had dis- 

 cussed the question fully, and after considering all the available 

 evidence, he concluded that there was no evidence that the annual 

 rainfall had diminished by the action of man in the destruction 



of trees Those parts of the State which had suffered 



most from the drought — Western Riverina and the Darling 

 country — had done practically no ringbarking." 



Mr. Russell adds, 



" so far as New South Wales is concerned, he felt quite 

 certain that the destruction of trees had not decreased the rain- 

 fall, but would rather appear to have increased it. 1 As an instance 



1 I have dealt with the subject of natural forest growths appearing 

 without human agency in my Presidential Address, Proc. Linn. Soc, 

 N.S.W., 1902, page 785, and would say that we have few data as to the 

 net forest area in New South Wales, showing how forest destruction is 

 balanced against planted and natural growth. 



