240 J. H. MAIDEN. 



the right requires several days to receive and carry down to the 

 valley, and but for this drainage into the ditch the water might 

 have remained there for an indefinitely longer time." 



Speaking of the forest floor, irrespective of a leaf-mulch 

 surface, Professor Harrington quotes Fesca to the effect 

 that the downward movement proceeds quickest in a dry 

 dust, only slowly in clay soils, the same amount of water 

 being drained through the former in one hour which took 

 two days to drain through the latter, and emphasises the 

 point that the surface conditions of the soil of a watershed 

 are the only controllable factors in the problem. 



* * * 



I now submit the whole subject to the consideration of 

 members of the Society. The matter of forest meteorology 

 and the questions that crop out of it present many puzzling 

 problems to us in Australia, and some of them have as yet 

 baffled the meteorologists of long settled countries. A 

 proper understanding of the principles which underlie the 

 relations of forests and moisture is of interest to us in two 

 special ways, first as regards the water supply of a large 

 city (Sydney), and secondly as regards the distribution and 

 conservation of moisture over the whole of the State. 

 Reasonable expenditure for research would be justifiable 

 if we could be thereby placed in a position to deal less 

 empirically with the rainfall we receive, and to know how 

 to conserve it more wisely than we do at present. A cer- 

 tain quantity of rain falls upon New South Wales ; do we 

 take care that it will do us most good and remain with us, 

 benefitting us as long as possible ? Many public questions 

 that loom large in the public eye should really claim less 

 of our attention than this. 



