| Show DROUT IN AUSTRALIA from john Pl australian correspondence considerable misapprehension appears to io exist with regard to australian tr droutha drout hs many writers sa alluding ludinig to them as aa if they were phenomena peculiar to new south wales and the other colonies overlooking the fact that all countries are more or less exposed to droutha or temporary defective rainfall some indeed which have never been credited with drouth being by no means free from the unwelcome visitation for instance the knitel kingdom has frequently been subject to droutha drout hs not simply for a month or two but for several years in sion and more than once to an extent i unknown in australia there were i tour four consecutive years during which the british rainfall in no year exceeded 65 per cent of the average no such drouth has ever yet been recorded in australia in sydney with 50 years experience the lowest rainfall of any single year that I 1 of at 1849 was 44 per cent of the average while the smallest rainfall for any two consecutive years beia rs gave 74 per cent of the average tor for each year where then is the difference for it is readily admitted that the effects of drouth are greater in new south wales and the other colonies than in the united kingdom the explanation is simple enough in the first place the high state of cultivation ti in the mother country tends to preserve the moisture in the soil irl in the next place the heating effect of the sun is not by any means so great in britain as it is in australia and thirdly the abundance of supplies from other countries naturally tend to mitigate the effects of a drouth in tho th united kingdom but in australia cultivation has not yet advanced sufficiently to mitigate to any considerable extent the effects of drouth and a beautifully bright sky gives the sua almost absolute power over the water especially in those districts where little or no attempt at conservation has haa wen been t made moreover in the early days of the ithe colony when the most terrible and gloomy accounts of droutha in new south wales were written those which have bave afforded such abundance of sensational sat ional material to later writers having no personal knowledge of the australian colonies the nearest place from which supplies could be obtained was the cape of good hope those were the days of slow sailing vessels and the delay and difficulty experienced in obtaining the necessary supplies naturally assisted in magnifying the terrors of drouth but those times have passed away railways and ocean steam navigation have completely revolutionized the situation moreover only a comparatively comparative lV small portion of the island continent was settled with the progress of settlement came A change for a drouth does not by any means affect all the austrian colonies at once and the aeed of one becomes met by the of another so that droutha have become shorn of their olden terror and it is only in the pastoral districts the australian dry country that they become formidable but even there the utilization of vast subterranean supplies of water by means of artesian wells is effecting a bright and welcome change then aga again in droutha drout hs as a rule cover but a comparatively little area seldom or ever involving the whole of a colony even of new south wales at once and it te Is a common thing when a district is visited by a drouth to move the live stock to another in which water and fe feed ad fire are plentiful it may also alao be mentioned m in connection with the losses of live stock that the frequent superabundance of grass and water continually tempts the pastors pastora lists ts to overstock their runs so that the feed falls fails much earlier than it otherwise would the subject abject is an easy one tor for exaggerated word painting and the employment of startling but unreal verbal coloring under a hot and copper sky a lurid light upon an awful scene scene of death and desolation the I 1 sun rises on a hazy morning valls sails in a white heat beat through a cloudless sky and sets a round red ball of fire etc are characteristic examples of this inflated style it must be admitted that serious as ass a drouth is at any time the impression conveyed by such language is cruelly untrue and sets the imagination to work tipon false information |
