A Study of Droughts.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 8546, 15 June 1896, Page 2

A Study of Droughts.

Mr H. 0. Eussell, C.M.G., Govern* ment Astronomer of New South Wales, has been making a study of droughts and rains, or good and bad seasons, and he has come .to the conclusion that such pronounced weather recurs in cycles of 19 years. He has traced droughts back to the great one of Egypt which produced the seven lean years of Pharaoh and Joseph, 1706 e.c., and the 19 year cycle hits this epoch within a year. It is not unlikely that the “ 1705 8.c.” is as much as that astray. He has traced two lines of droughts through the past, and points to missing ones—or the dates where droughts should have been, and probably were, but no one has tallied them. His tallies are poor and patchy down to a.d. 900, but from that date to this he finds 44 droughts recorded of one series out of the 52 there should have been according to the 19-year cycle theory, and of the eight “missing,” six were—or should have been, between 900 and 1000 a.d. In the second series he finds 36 droughts recorded, out of 51 he reckons there should be. He also found that 69 recorded falls of “ red rain ” all work into the 19 year cycle. Hurricane rains, also, and great frost years fall in the cycle order, and are connected with drought years. Seventeen out of 19 Egyptian droughts corresponded with 17 droughts in Australia. There are fortunately as many good seasons as bad ones, and some of these recur with great regularity, preceding and following the great droughts. Mr Eussell says that as his investigation proceeded the weight of evidence gradually converged on the moon as the exciting cause. He had never had any sympathy with the theory of lunar influence upon weath er,and reeeived,rather against his will, the evidence that presented itself, but the logic of facts left no alternative but to accept the moon as prime motor. He thinks that the rediscovery of this law of climate is of very 'great importance, and calls it a rediscovery because there are many reasons for thinking that it was well known to the Jews, the Egyptians and other ancient peoples. At all events they knew how to forecast droughts successfully, and in Egypt, like sensible people, made provision for them. Finally, Mr Eussell said, the cycle theory indicated good seasons for Australia in 1897 and 1898.