PERIODICITY OF GOOD AND BAD SEASONS. 87 
patchy character. It is worth while adding that it is evident 
from the few records available (only two stations west of the 
Darling) that a similar storm occurred in February 1877; for in 
February “ Momba ” Station had a storm and four inches of rain, 
and “Yancania,” seven and a half inches in the same month, nine- 
teen years before that of the present year 1896. In 1858 no one 
on the Darling River thought of rainfall records, and the few 
notes left by those who were taking up the country there do not 
help us at all ; but Dr. Glennie’s record at the Paterson again 
comes to our aid and tells us that on February 2nd, 1858 a most 
tremendous rain and hail storm with thunder and lightning passed 
over the Paterson. I mention these peculiar rain storms just to 
show how they repeat themselves as notable parts of the weather 
at intervals of nineteen years, and it is to be noted that in A 
droughts the storm came in January, and D series in February. 
But it is not alone in these storm rains that these features of 
drought are repeated, it shows in many ways and not least in 
temperature ; for instance, we all remember the intense heat = 
January 1896, when one hundred and sixty deaths were attributed 
to the great power of the sun in the Bourke district, we find intense 
heat occurred at nineteen years’ intervals before that in January 
1877, 1858, 1839, and 1820; in 1839 it was so severe that the 
vines, grapes, and leaves were burnt up; the latter crumbling 
to the touch as if they had been baked. 
I will add just one more because it is in a short sharp drought 
which only lasted a year and finds its type in 1888. In that year 
on February 8th, a very heavy rain storm accompanied by thunder 
and lightning came into the Colony from the north, and reached — 
Moree at 7-45 p-m, on that day; so heavy was it that the whole 
of the surrounding country was flooded, and the local rain caused 
* rise in the river of ten feet. It spread over the Namoi, Mac-_ 
quarie and Bogan Rivers, but did not go south of Dubbo. Just 
nineteen years before in February 1869, Mr. L. 8S. Donaldson, P.M., 
who was then living on the Bogan, tells me that the February 
1896 storm reminded him of a heavy flood rain in the former year. 
