KUNGL. SV. VET. AKADEMIENS HANDLINGAR. BAND 52. N:o |7. 13 
A pearl-fishing flotilla of about 50 vessels were sunk, and many other disasters oc- 
curred. With short interruptions the rain continued to fall in torrents during three 
days. After this a period of about the same weather as before the outburst followed, 
viz.' sunny, hot days, sometimes, however, interrupted by brief showers of rain. 
These showers then usually came at or after sunset. It may be worth adding that 
at Christmas time when we had returned to Derby and in Jan., Febr. and March 
during our sojourn on the islands off King's Sound (Sunday Island) there came similar 
brief rains towards the evening. The days were warm, clear, and cloudless. In 
April thunder-storms prevailed in Derby on several occasions (particularly on the 
l3th) recalling that one at Mowla Downs though considerably more short-lived, 
continuing only a couple of hours, wherupon the dry weather began again. It was 
(The autor phot.) 
Fig. 4. Water-accumulation at Mowla Downs near a creek after three days rain. 
said that the rains vary much in different years. Certain years there comes but 
exceedingly little rain, while other years are distinguished by a relative abundance 
(400-500 mm.). 
During our sojourn in the country we found that the rain here, the first masses 
of water having run to and filled the creeks or water-pools and the ground having 
absorbed the rest, was only able slightly to affect the dryness that increased more 
and more even during the summer months. But the presence of reservoirs of water 
in this season had as a result that the bird-life now during the breeding-season was 
not obliged to concentrate itself in certain places, but found the necessary conditions 
everywhere. 
It stands to reason that the extreme violence with which the rainy season 
come on caused a correspondingly quick change in the appearance of the landscape. 
The water brought new life as well in the twinkling of an eye strewing the dry, 
burning sand with an immense number of glittering water-pools, which, true enough, 
