82 H. C. RUSSELL. 
CAWARRA IN DROUGHT A. 
Then the “Cawarra” Gale, a most furious easterly storm in 
which this fine steamer was wrecked at the entrance to Newcastle, 
N. 8. Wales, on July 12, 1866, in the great drought period which 
we have called A. 
DUNBAR IN DROUGHT D. 
And on going back another step, I remembered the loss of the 
«Dunbar ” at Sydney heads, in a tremendous easterly gale, on 
20th August, 1857, just nineteen years before the “ Dandenong” 
was wrecked. It is not my purpose to describe these wrecks, I 
only recall them as the most memorable that our short history 
affords, and the fact that they all occurred in our great drought 
periods, set me searching history to see if great storms and droughts 
had any connection. 
That there is such a connection seems, a priori, extremely 
probable, because the great heat that accompanies a drought 
furnishes that additional impulse to the circulation of the wind 
which is necessary to urge it into violent storms ; for a compara- 
tively small additional impulse over the large area of the equatorial 
regions, would supply the energy necessary for these very violent 
local storms. The heat is a matter of common observation, and 
the hurricane at such periods is found by the careful observer to 
be something unusual, and possessed of a restless energy in drought 
times. It was soon found that the conditions observed in a few 
eases of my own experience were amply confirmed by a search 
which was carried back for six hundred years. Sixty-two hurri- 
canes were found, the greater majority being between 1700 and 
‘the present day, and only exceptionally violent hurricanes were 
selected, such as are quite distinct from the ordinary hurricane 
or storm, and when these came to be compared with the drought 
periods it was found that every one had occurred in a drought 
year; and further, that those of the greatest violence belong to 
the D drought, which is remarkable for its great heat and the 
-energy of its winds. 
