of water would be comparatively easy. I have
already begun it on my sheep run, and other sheep owners have done the
same thing. It is an expensive work, but I believe it will pay in the
end.'

"'There are three places on my land where broad valleys terminate at
their lower ends between hills forty or fifty feet high. Now, by
building a dam from one of these hills to the other, I can flood any one
of these valleys to any depth I choose up to the height of the hills. It
was only recently that I finished work at one of these places, and I
have gangs of men busy with the other two. For the present I shall make
my dams thirty feet high, and this will give me at each of the three
places a lake of fresh water with about forty acres of surface area. If
I can fill these lakes every winter with water, I think I will have
enough to keep my sheep through the dry season, after making liberal
allowance for loss by evaporation and in other ways. Of course, such a
system of storing water is only practicable where the owner of a place
has sufficient capital for the purpose. The poor man, with his small
flock of sheep, can hardly undertake it.'

"'Preliminary surveys have been made in places where it is proposed that
the colonial governments should build extensive works for saving water
on a grand scale. The government would be repaid, in part at least, by
selling the water to private landholders in the same way that water is
sold in California, New Mexico, and other parts of the United States. I
am confident that you will see a grand system of water storage in full
operation in Australia before many years.'"

While on the subject of rainfall, Harry asked Ned if he knew where the
heaviest annual rainfall in the world was.

Ned said he did not know, but he thought that Dr. Whitney might be able
to inform them.

The question was appealed to the doctor, who paused a moment, and then
said that "what might be considered a heavy rain in one place would be a
light one in another. In Great Britain, if an inch of rain fell in a day
it was considered a heavy rain; but in many parts of the Highlands of
Scotland three inches not infrequently fall in one day. Once in the isle
of Skye twelve inches of rain fell in thirteen hours, and rainfalls of
five and seven inches are not uncommon. Thirty inches of rain fell in
twenty-four hours at Geneva, in Switzerland, thirty-three inches at
Gibraltar in twenty-six hours, and twenty-four inches in a single