DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70266#0420
374
kirby’s wonderful museum.
three hours, and found we could not fathom its body in five
times. We observed the soil where it grew to be very stony;
and upon the nicest enquiry we could afterwards make,
both of the natives of the country and the Spanish inhabi-
tants, we could not learn there was any such tree known
throughout New Spain, nor perhaps all America over; but
I do not relate this as a prodigy of nature, because I am not
philosopher eiiough to ascribe any natural cause for it; the
learned may perhaps give substantial reasons in nature for
what appeared to us a great and marvellous secret.”
Annual Register, 1/64, p. 115<
ACCOUNT of an
EXTRAORDINARY DROUGHT,
on THE ISLAND OF SUMATRA.
BY WILLIAM MARSDEN, ESQ.
This phenomenon was observed in the year 1/75; the
S.E. or dry monsoon, set in about the middle of June, and
continued with very little interruption till the month of
March in the following year. So long and severe a drought
had not been experienced there in the memory of the oldest
man. The verdure of the ground was burnt up, the trees
were stripped of ’ their leaves, the springs of water failed,
and the earth every where gaped in fissures. For some
time a copious dew falling in the night, supplied the de-
ficiency of rain; but this did not last long, yet a thick fog,
which rendered the neighbouring hills invisible for months
together, and nearly obscured the sun, never ceased to
hang over the land, and add a gloom to the prospect al-
ready but too melancholy^ The Europeans on the coast
suffered extremely by sickness; about a fourth part of the
whole number being carried off by fevers and other bilious
distempers ; the depression of spirits which they laboured
kirby’s wonderful museum.
three hours, and found we could not fathom its body in five
times. We observed the soil where it grew to be very stony;
and upon the nicest enquiry we could afterwards make,
both of the natives of the country and the Spanish inhabi-
tants, we could not learn there was any such tree known
throughout New Spain, nor perhaps all America over; but
I do not relate this as a prodigy of nature, because I am not
philosopher eiiough to ascribe any natural cause for it; the
learned may perhaps give substantial reasons in nature for
what appeared to us a great and marvellous secret.”
Annual Register, 1/64, p. 115<
ACCOUNT of an
EXTRAORDINARY DROUGHT,
on THE ISLAND OF SUMATRA.
BY WILLIAM MARSDEN, ESQ.
This phenomenon was observed in the year 1/75; the
S.E. or dry monsoon, set in about the middle of June, and
continued with very little interruption till the month of
March in the following year. So long and severe a drought
had not been experienced there in the memory of the oldest
man. The verdure of the ground was burnt up, the trees
were stripped of ’ their leaves, the springs of water failed,
and the earth every where gaped in fissures. For some
time a copious dew falling in the night, supplied the de-
ficiency of rain; but this did not last long, yet a thick fog,
which rendered the neighbouring hills invisible for months
together, and nearly obscured the sun, never ceased to
hang over the land, and add a gloom to the prospect al-
ready but too melancholy^ The Europeans on the coast
suffered extremely by sickness; about a fourth part of the
whole number being carried off by fevers and other bilious
distempers ; the depression of spirits which they laboured