Drought

“ Again and again you are deluded into believing the long, weary drought is indeed nearing its end; you feel so sure there is a tremendous rain just at hand, that you prepare for action, and, doubting the trustworthiness of those portions of the roof covered with brack, are careful to remove from beneath them everything liable to be spoilt by wet, then, having set your house in order, you wait eagerly to hear the first pattering of the longed-for drops. They do not come, however; it all ends in nothing, and soon every cloud is gone, and the sun blazes out once more in pitiless splendour. ”

“ The vast vaporous atmosphere that flows inland from the Atlantic Ocean to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, deluging our cereal plains with its life-giving precipitation will continue its pluvial generosity without any heed whatever to the puny scratchings of man upon the surface of Mother Earth. Nothing that man can do will intensify drought conditions on this continent or augment the volume of floods. ”

“ When the weary drought is over, and the long-wished-for rain begins to fall, every one's heart is gladdened by the sound of abundance of rain, and the voice of many waters.
"It means everything to the farmer: the long drought over at last, the dams full, the parched country revived, the poor thin cattle no longer in danger of starvation, healthier ostriches, a better quality of feathers, a near prospect of nests, and, in fact, the removal of a load of cares and anxieties. ”

“ Every spear of grass, every tree, every plant, must have withered and perished; and all the cattle must have died for want of food and drink; and the people must have shared the same fate. Indeed, not a living thing could have been left upon the face of the earth where this drought prevailed. ”

“ A time of drought is here, a great drought on all the land. Few are the flowers anywhere, and the grass-seed has gone. But goonbean and wahlerh will go, and the drought will go, and then the flowers and the bees will come again, for so it has always been since the wirreenuns brought the blossoms from Bullimah. ”

“ So I said cheerfully to myself, “God and Robert are a multitude,” and my bread will be given, and my water sure.
The summer came on hot and early, and was accompanied by a great drought. Pitiful tales came into town of the suffering for water at outlying farms, the creeks having dried up, and even the larger rivers showing great depletion. Then the cattle and game began to die of thirst, and of some awful disease called “black tongue.” Thousands lay dead upon the prairies, which were full of deep and wide fissures, made by the cracking and parting of the hot, dry earth. ”

“ Showers have fallen almost daily over the State since the drought was broken, and, in the few days that have passed, the grass that was so terribly burned and parched has sprung up anew, until it looks quite fresh and green again. ”

“ Let but the stern drought continue unbroken, all-heedless of man and his great army of dependants, through the brief spring, the long summer—till the days shorten and (even here) the nights grow cold—unprecedented losses must occur in certain localities. ”

“ While the drought destroyed much life, it more largely deported it, and I have, in many years of wandering about my home, seen nothing more positively wonderful than the promptness with which every nook and corner was repopulated when the autumn rains came. ”

“ Observe, that if the waters were never drawn out of the earth, all vegetation would be destroyed by the excess of moisture; if, on the other hand, the plants were not nourished and refreshed by occasional showers, the drought would be equally fatal to them. ”

“ So the heat continues and the drought increases. The ‘land-springs’ breaking out by the sides of the fields have long since disappeared; the true springs run feebly as the stores of water in the interior of the earth gradually grow less. ”

“ Defined scientifically, drought is not lack of rain. It is a dry soil condition in which plant growth slows or stops and plant survival may be threatened. The earth loses water when wind blows, when sun shines, when air temperature is high, and when humidity is low. Of all these factors, air temperature most affects soil moisture loss. ”

“ If it depended upon chance whether the dry air should come out on this side or on that of this calm belt, or whether the moist air should return or not whence it came—if such were the case in nature, we perceive that, so far from any regularity as to seasons, we should have, or might have, years of drought the most excessive, and then again seasons of rains the most destructive ”

“ A drought will naturally follow until such time as the air becomes surcharged with clouds or vapour from the ocean, which being no longer able to sustain their own weight, descend upon the mountains, and being conveyed by hundreds of streams into the western lowlands, again fill the marshes, and cause the recurrence of regular seasons. ”

“ Drought has been a cause of mischief, yet we have learned to irrigate and to conserve; epidemics have smitten us, yet we have mastered sanitation; floods have ruined whole territories, yet we have built dikes and levees. ”

“ This heat comes in the middle of a drought, too, as we have not had rain for about four weeks—another phenomenon. Our rain-tank is empty, so we now depend on the supply of brackish water from the wells, and even that is reported to be limited, which is alarming, as one would commit almost any crime to get enough water for a bath. ”

“ The spruits or brooks run low in their beds, the ditches are dry, the wells have only a bucketful of muddy water and a good many frogs in them, and the tanks are failing one after another. Yet this is only the beginning of winter, and I am told that I don’t yet know what dust and drought mean. I begin to think affectionately of those nice heavy thunder-showers every evening, and to long to see again the familiar bank of cloud peeping up over that high hill to the west, precursor of a deluge. Well! well! there is no satisfying some people. ”

“ I was told that about once in every ten years it happens that little or no rain falls during the winter season; and that, in consequence of this drought, the whole country is dried up, vegetable life is almost annihilated, and the beasts of the field perish of thirst and starvation. ”

“ Although the development of these hot winds is wholly independent of drought conditions, they will, of course, become much more intense, extend over more territory, and be more injurious to crops when they occur during the prevalence of a drought than when they occur with seasonable weather. ”

“ The moisture-laden clouds that visit us, break on the sides of this hat, giving the brim, or coast, the full benefit of their precipitation; drifting over the plateau, or crown, with rapidly decreasing bulk. Thus, the great plain, in size the greatest, and in soil the richest part of us, is always labouring under the curse of irregular and inefficient rainfall; and whatever good we may do in the way of water storage and we may do so much-we have always the threat of many years of drought hanging over, during which our treasury of water will be drained, and not replenished. ”

“ They show generally that, as the rainfall increases on any given area evaporation increases, but not in the same proportion. Again, the loss from a given rainfall depends greatly upon the previous season. An inch falling in a single day on a saturated mountain area will nearly all reach the rivers, but if it falls during a drought seven-eighths may be lost so far as the period of the drought is concerned. ”

“ In view of the drought which prevails in many parts of the country and its unusual severity over extensive districts, the Rural New Yorker suggests to those who have planted trees or shrubs the past spring that there is one method, and so far as we know, says the writer, only one, by which they may be protected against injury or death from that cause. ”

“ Thus, in many districts, crops which have survived the summer drought are swept away by the autumn deluge, and those who have cried for rain are mocked with ruin when the waters “prevail exceedingly upon the earth.” ”

“ A prairie or forest may be dried up by drought until leaves and twigs are brittle and dead, but all is calm until a chance spark from a locomotive or a tobacco-pipe starts a fire that may devastate square leagues of territory in its course.
In all cases of unstable equilibrium—and such abound in Nature—a very small impetus may produce great consequences ”

“ The garden is so big that everything has to be bought wholesale; and I fear I shall not be able to go on much longer with only one man and a stork, because the more I plant the more there will be to water in the inevitable drought, and the watering is a serious consideration when it means going backwards and forwards all day long to a pump near the house, with a little water-cart. People living in England, in almost perpetual mildness and moisture, don’t really know what a drought is. ”

“ O earth, I will befriend thee more with rain That shall distil from these two ancient urns, Than youthful April shall with all his show'rs. In summer's drought I'll drop upon thee still; ”

“ For the roots of the trees, and of all the innumerable shrubs and bushes and vines and ferns that thrive in their shadow, kept the ground open and held the water in countless natural wells for the use of the soil in droughts. But all the undergrowth dying when its protecting forests were felled, the scanty showers percolated into the streams at once, causing rare floods and frequent droughts. ”

“ The most serious effects of prolonged drought are the losses of stock, due to an almost entire dependence upon natural grasses. That these are easily preventable will, no doubt, be proved by future experience. ”

“ Once, exactly seven years before, while the world writhed and baked in the throes of the last great drought she had been compelled to venture into the unknown land. 154The streams and lagoons had dried; those of the animals that did not perish outright migrated, and Suma had followed the living stream as a matter of self-preservation for, without food and water, life could not be sustained. ”

“ A long period of drought succeeded to the tall of dust, and during that period the columns of the lighter parts of the dust, which were raised and driven by the wind, proved a most unpleasant annoyance to those who were exposed to them, and exhibited a very singular appearance when viewed from any distance. ”

“ Water, even at the regular watering-places, was so scarce that a heavy charge was made for each animal drinking, and it seemed that, if the drought did not break very soon, the route would have to be utterly abandoned. ”

“ But it is difficult to reduce fine dust to the consistency of a road with a surface hard enough to resist the disintegrating effects of an eight-months’ drought, followed by tremendous and violent rains. ”

“ Though of ancient origin, the rain makers, or weather shamans, have persisted right on down through the ages. A severe drought meant death to the early agriculturists; weather control was the object of much ancient magic. ”

“ The one industry, agriculture, suffers frequently from excessive rainfalls; but this wondrous harvest of the clouds is seldom properly ingathered, so that, in times of drought, there is frequently, even for drinking purposes, a most insufficient supply. ”

“ Unlike other hot countries, this great heat and dryness is unaccompanied by night dews, and the falls of rain being uncertain and irregular, droughts of many months’ duration sometimes occur, during which the rivers and lagoons are dried up, the land becomes a parched waste, vegetation is burnt up, and famine spreads destruction on every side. It is easier for the imagination to conceive than the pen to depict the horrors of so dreadful a visitation. ”

“ I understand by the king’s son Man, who wishes to cultivate the earth, who is the princess imprisoned by the enchanter, the drought. She is released by the agency of the three phenomena that usher in the rainy season, the rainbow (Long) , the cloud (Broad) , and the lightning (Sharpsight) . Man, by the aid of these three phenomena, is enabled to cultivate the earth. Such a story could only originate in a country of periodic rains. The rapid recovery of vegetation and almost instantaneous reappearance of fish in dried-up brooks in India are well known. ”

“ Let us add to this, that the dry soil, whose fertility depends on the stated return of annual rains, is parched up whenever a drought takes place; all vegetation is then destroyed, and an inevitable famine succeeds. ”

“ I have had a rough time since I came out, and have been through the mire—Jackeroo, storekeeper, horseboy, drover—the usual round; then one season I struck a piece of luck and bought a small sheep station. For a year everything went well—plenty of water and grass, and wool at a high figure. Then last year came the drought, and on the top of it the floods. It is always the way in this country. ”

“ Another improvement, which seems to be the opposite of this, is the irrigation of arid lands in those parts of the country where the annual rainfall is small and every summer brings a drought. In these cases, water stored in large natural or artificial reservoirs, or that furnished by snow melting on the mountains, is utilized to carry the crops through the dry season and to enable the farmer to grow large crops where nothing could be produced without this aid. ”

“ These floods are succeeded by periods of drought. The flow of water in the streams shrinks away, often leaving their beds almost dry. As a consequence, crops and herds suffer, the mill-wheels are stopped or turn but slowly and feebly, the transportation of merchandise is impeded, and the various industries of life suffer. The forests prevent such a deplorable condition of things. The spongy soil formed by their fallen leaves, accumulated for years, retains the rain which falls upon it as in a great reservoir, and obliges it to flow off gradually instead of with a sudden flood. ”