182 
that this exceptional drought and heat had been caused by the extent 
sive fellings and burnings for rubber planting, large areas being 
denuded and the exposure of the bare ground to sun heat had caused 
a heated layer of air which, rising upwards, had prevented the con- 
densation of the clouds. 
Mr. Severn gave me the following notes : — “The months of Febru- 
• ary and March are practically rainless for ihe Malay Peninsula from 
latitude 7 to latitude 3. South of that they are generally wet months. 
This year they have been practically rainless for the first time since 
rain guages were used. The rain has approached the area south of 
latitude three on several occasions during these two months. It has 
fallen heavily in the China Sea and in the Straits of Malacca, within 
100 miles of Singapore. The clearing of the jungle in Johore may be 
the cause of the failure of the usual heavy rains.” The clearing, 
burning and exposure to sunheat of big areas must undoubtedly 
affect the meteorology of any country. 
The evaporation of water from cleared areas exposed to sun is 
very great. Anyone who has looked over hill forest after a heavy 
rain must have noticed the roads marked out by a dense mist of 
rapidly evaporating water rising from the exposed road surface, while 
no such mist is appearing among the forest trees. 
It is certainly remarkable that the worst of the drought has been 
over the South of the Peninsula where large areas have been denuded 
of trees* and so recently planted that the young rubber trees have not 
developed sufficiently to replace the lost forest. 
Mr. fought, who has good records of the meteorology of Singa- 
pore for many years, affirms that articles in the local papers have 
much exaggerated the drought, and calls attention to a paper of Mr. 
Vaughan's, printed in Buckley’s Anecdotal History of Singapore 
(p. 736,737), in which reference is made to the longest actual drought 
in record, January and February, 1864, when for 35 successive days 
no rain seems to have fallen in town while, however, Mr. Knight, on 
Mount Pleasant, registered seventeen hundredths of an inch. “ This 
year/’ he writes, “there were very few rainless days in January 
though the total rainfall of the month was only just over 12% inches. 
From the 28th January to February 3, seven days were rainless. The 
rain registered in February by me was as follows : — 
4th 
7th 
'14th 
15th 
16th 
I/th 
22nd 
Total 4.05 
.08 
■05 
•94 
■36 
1.38 
.01 
