WEATHER AND WATER.

Evening Star, Issue 20310, 19 October 1929, Page 14

WEATHER AND WATER.

Ax opinion which lias been given by Dr Kiclson (Government Meteorologist) that New Zealand is nob necessarily in for a dry summer because Great Britain has hud one will be received with different feelings in different localities. Tho first nine ; months of the present year have been the driest in Britain for the last sixty years, though in IS7O, 1887,' and 1921 rain was only a very little more plentiful. There is a common belief, that seasons more or less follow each other as between the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, but statistics cited by Dr Kidson appear to show that the connection is exaggerated, and that it ■applies more to Great Britain and Australia than to Great Britain and New Zealand. The seasons corresponding to previous abnormally dry summers in England, he pointed out, .were not particularly dry here. Britain’s ice-ago winter, it will bo recalled, was not followed by anything of approximate severity in this dominion, though our winter was a sharper one than usual. The Government Meteorologist seems to have been impressed by the fact that many people, would bo disappointed by his inability, as scientific knowledge stands at present, to give them an assurance of a “fine” summer, because Great Britain has experienced one Hero in Dunedin, where the long delay in providing an enlargement of the water supply has been disturbing the public mind, it is relief that is more likely to be felt from the assurance that our summer will not necessarily be so dry as England’s. The unusual drought in Britain was not without its disadvantages, notably in displaying tho insufficiency of water supplies. A writer who deals dispassionately with the subject in the new review, ‘The Realist,’ states that a real shortage, causing loud resentment, has been experienced in some districts, especially in the North of England, “ where some water undertakings have cut off the direct supply via the mains to - private houses ’’-r-presumably for only limited hours. , But the Englishman has small room to waste water, at any time. , Tin? writer describes 'the normal , supply for London, where the watering, (pt gardens and. sporte.jgronptfe

by -means of Lose ? ,-outside- tap, or sprinkler,* and the ' hosing of motor vehicles have had to be prohibited recently, as thirty-five gallons per head per day; and.that for the kingdom generally as from thirty to thirty-five. The Dunedin official consumption of five million gallons, which works out at something dike fifty-eight gallons per head per day, may appear to be a generous one on this comparison, hut a water supply should b© equal" to all emergencies. More water is used per head in Scotland than in - England. Stirling’s supply of sixty-three gallons has been quoted recently as the average, while the town of Doune goes up as far as 125 gallons as the average consumption of tho ordinary person all the year round. One hundred gallons is the average for American cities, and it is recorded that the supply for tho ancient Romans, when their baths were at tho height of their popularity, was at the rate of from 150 to 200 gallons a head.