74 H. C. RUSSELL. 
The diagram takes in the whole period from the foundation of 
the colony to the present year, 7.¢., one hundred and eight years, 
and it is certainly very noteworthy that the most pronounced 
droughts recur with such regularity, that is, at every nineteen - 
years throughout the one hundred and eight years. It had been 
observed by me years ago that some of our great droughts had 
been world-wide, and when the diagram had got so far, it was 
decided to fill in the Indian droughts on a lower line, and see if 
they also coincided with Australian ones, and you see the result, 
viz., that in nearly all cases the great droughts in Australia had 
their counter parts in India. 
The investigation had become interesting, and seemed to 
promise to show the exact year of the great drought in this 
country, of which there was abundant evidence when the colonists 
landed here, both in the fact that to the south of Sydney all the 
very large trees were dead and between them were growing young 
trees ; and the story of the blacks who said that the river Hunter 
dried up, that all the great trees died and most of the blacks, that 
those who survived had obtained drinking water from the moun- 
tain springs. A similar story of the drying up of the Murrum- 
bidgee and their sufferings was told by the blacks on the Mur- 
rumbidgee. I had long wanted to find out when this terrible 
drought in this Colony took place, and the Indian record showed 
that the A drought had been repeated in 1769-70 which probably 
fixes the date: for the middle of the eighteenth century was 
very dry generally all over the world. 
A AND D DROUGHTS. 
But, if we can carry the nineteen years period in this way back 
beyond our history, the idea immediately presents itself :—‘ Where 
are you going to draw the limit: is there any limit?” It was 
evidently not a question for argument, but for proof or disproof 
by figures. It was recollected at the moment, that history records 
a terrible drought and famine in India in 1022, and there was 4 
similar one in South America about the same time.! Does it lie in 
1 Appendix No. 2. 
