This chapter would be incomplete without a few words respecting the climate of Griqualand West. Taken as a whole it is very salubrious, and especially adapted to those suffering from lung disease, as the country being almost entirely devoid of timber or vegetation permits free currents of air to prevail, a condition which is very favorable to consumptive patients. Although the changes of temperature are very sudden and great, yet with proper care little harm is done, as the excessive dryness of the soil and atmosphere enables the residents to withstand with but little inconvenience a heat which would be quite unbearable in a moist climate. The rain, too, when it comes, generally falls in sharp and heavy showers. The drinking water is upon the whole good, though that of the deep wells is rather hard, and in the shallow ones brackish, but the water now brought in from the Vaal River through the enterprise of Chevalier Lynch by means of pipes is soft and very wholesome. The elevation of Griqualand West of about 4,000 feet above the sea appears to give it the air of a mountainous region, the ozone being constant, and ranging from 3.5 to 9.5 degrees on a scale of ten, the average being about five degrees. In Kimberley the north wind is the prevailing one. From a report of 4,452 observations taken by Mr. G. J. Lee, F. R. Met. S., in 1885, in 681 cases it was due north; next in order came northeast and south winds, of about equal frequency, and next, with comparatively little difference, were winds from the northwest and southwest. As can be imagined Griqualand West is very dry. It will be seen from the table below that there has been one year only during the last nine in which the rainfall came up to or exceeded twenty-five inches, which is about the English average: 1877, 13.58 inches; 1878, 9.34; 1879, 19.38; 1880, 15.43; 1881, 30.30; 1882, 14.77; 1883, 13.63; 1884, 20.46, and 73 days on which rain fell; 1885, 9.77, and 74 days on which rain fell. In some months no rain falls at all. The following is a tabulated list of the months, during the last eight years, in which this has occurred: June, 1877; June, 1878; October, 1879; July, 1880; August, 1880; September, 1880; July, 1881; September, 1881; June, 1883; December, 1883; July, 1884; August, 1884; July, 1885. During the year 1885 there were ninety-two days on which lightning was seen, seventy-four on which dew fell, two hundred and eighty-eight days on which there were clouds, and seven days on which ice was seen, although in the outskirts of Kimberley ice was much more frequent. I have given monthly returns in the accompanying table: