Year. 
1876 
1857 
PERIODICITY OF GOOD AND BAD SEASONS, 97 
List of Droughts of the D Series. 
are reported ; sheep cattle and horses and wild animals of 
these regions are dying off in thousands.” The heat in the 
east of Cape Colony during January 1878 is described as the 
most disastrous ever known in that region.—ature, Vol. 
XVIL, p. 436. 
(Goldsbrough & Co., estimated that in Australia the loss 
of sheep alone at nine millions in the 1877-8 drought; to 
this has to be added the losses of wool, cattle, horses and 
farm produce ; Sir James M’Cullock, estimated the loss on 
the sale of wool alone at £2,000,000). 
In Cape Colony (Nature, ibid.) complete ruin has over- 
taken a large number of the settlers, many of the homes of 
hitherto well to do colonists have been broken up, and the 
several members obliged to go into menial service in sri 
for the barest necessaries of life. 
In the South Seas we find the same dire effects of the 
1876-77 drought ; it began in 1876 and lasted all 1877, 
many of the natives died of starvation, so severe was the 
drought. The Rev. 8. J. Whitmee writes, “we have had 
the greatest drought I have ever known.” In Tanna, New 
Hebrides, the crops completely failed and many of the 
people died of starvation. 
In the Island of Ascension there was no rain for fourteen 
months before August 1877, and the supply of fresh water 
for each person had to be reduced to one gallon per day. 
In Egypt in 1877 they had the lowest Nile on record, a 
proof of the severity of the drought at its source. 
Drought in India 1856-7. 
Admiral Fitzroy states that in 1858 and 1859 drought 
prevailed in Africa, America, West Indies and Australia, 
1857-8 drought in England did not break up until Sept. 1859, 
but in South Africa and Australia it broke up before that. 
1838 1837-8.9, severe drought in parts of the north-west a. a 
vinces of India ; 800,000 people died. 
G—June 3, 1896, 
