222 J. H. MAIDEN. 



planet, is very imperfectly realized. I have travelled 

 much in New South Wales, and I am sure that it would 

 conduce to a better understanding of the subject by our 

 people if they would lay to heart this fundamental and 

 wide-reaching truth. 



" When we reflect that our rain storms are of a very wide 

 extent, oftentimes over 1,000 miles in diameter, and may take 

 their origin and bring their moisture from distances of 1,000 miles 

 and more, the thought that man, by his puny efforts, may change 

 their action, or modify it in any way, seems ridiculous in the 

 extreme." 1 



Mr. Russell, says : — 2 



" The monsoons make or mar our climate. Given the moDsoons 

 full of moisture, and rain falls abundantly all over the State. If 

 the monsoon wind is dry, it is also very strong, sending frequently 

 and persistently strong hot nor-westers, which bring no moisture, 

 but dry up the country like "veritable siroccos." Droughts are 

 the result of special energy, generated in equatorial regions, and 

 distributed over the world by the trade winds and monsoons. The 

 source of this energy, he thinks, is outside the earth, but a full 

 knowledge of it will not be obtained until all countries combine 

 to trace the history of these destructive forces." 



Professor Hazen has some further remarks that are 

 pertinent in this connection, and as his paper is one of the 

 ablest contributions to the subject that I have read, I would 

 like to again quote him. 



"It has been said that where our densest forests are found that 

 we have the greatest precipitation. There is no way whereby we 

 can see that such forests would have started unless favoured by 

 rainfall, so that the presence of the forest rather indicated the 

 earlier occurrence of practically the same rainfall as at present. 

 Meteorologists are agreed that there has been practically no change 



1 Hazen, op. cit. 



2 Report to Legislative Assembly, 31st November, 1898. 



