112 ‘ H. C. RUSSELL. 
I did take only the two major droughts about which history has 
something to say. 
(7) Mr. Carment asks if I contended that droughts sceialiiae 
over the whole of the world in nineteen years’ cycles? That was 
what I meant to convey as my conviction, but as pointed out, 
nearly the whole of the world had no history of such matters, and 
it could not at present be proved. See list of droughts under 
date 1876, appendix 2 
(8) As to the effect of eclipses of the sun and moon on weather. 
I said in the text that the investigation as to the moon was 
unfinished, but ‘that, so far as the comparison of the moon’s 
position, in relation to the sun and earth and droughts, goes, it 
shews that when the eclipses occur about the equinoxes, that is, 
when both sun and moon are making the greatest tides in the 
ocean, then we have droughts, due apanedy to their combined in- 
fluence on the earth’s atmosphere. 
(9) Mr. Carment—* It was not clear from the paper what had 
induced the author to construct five different series of droughts.” 
A reference to the text shews that I did not construct them. The 
years were studied and classified without reference to any cycle, 
and when this was done, the diagram was complete with its good 
and bad years all shewn, the theory followed to account for the 
order in which they recur. 
(10) As to what constituted a good or bad year, see (1) in reply 
to Professor Gurney. And in regard to the statement that it did 
not appear why the author had constructed ~~ different series of 
droughts, see my reply (6). 
(11) And as to the question of chronology see (5). 
(12) Mr. Maitland, I think correctly appreciates the importance 
of the nineteen years’ cycle, but does not see how great rains and 
floods form parts of droughts. In the text I have endeavoured 
to shew that places with large rainfall, as the coast of New South 
Wales, do not feel the severity of drought, and that hurricane 
storms are in some way connected with droughts, and such storms 
