| rice were carried into the distressed districts, and | about 100,000 remained after relief concluded. Mr. | Danvers gives us the following details respecting this | famine:— | | “During three successive years the weather in Bengal had | been abnormal. In 1871 the rain was excessive, but the | crops were good. In 1872 the rain was deficient, but | although extraordinarily scanty, it was happily | distributed both in time and place, and the crops were | good in Bengal, and not bad in Behar. The year 1873 was | again dry, almost beyond precedent, and what rain there | was was unfortunately distributed. South of the Ganges it | was excessive; but in North Behar, and almost the whole | of Bengal, the rain was below the average. Coupled with | deficient rainfall, the monsoon of 1873 was abnormally | hot.... In January 1874 it was reported that the frost | and west winds were drying up the crops in Patna. The | famine reached its culminating point in April and May.” | 1877 | India. Madras Presidency. One of the most extended famines | on record. The cost to the Government of India, in | remedial measures and loss of revenue, is estimated at | £10,000,000. The actual amount of mortality occasioned is | difficult to determine, the estimates vary so much. | Cholera prevailed in some of the famine districts, and | added greatly to the number of deaths. The Mansion House | Relief Fund, instituted by the Lord Mayor (Sir Thomas | White), exceeded half a million sterling. Mr. Danvers | gives the following details regarding the meteorological | incidents associated with this famine:— | | “The season of 1874 was generally good, but in parts it | was unfavourable. In 1875 the season was in many places | unpropitious. In 1876 the south-west monsoon, or summer | rains, were deficient throughout the greater part of the | Madras Presidency, and in the Bombay district of Poona. | In the northern portions only of the Madras Presidency | ... was the rainfall ordinarily propitious. The | north-east monsoon, or autumn rains, failed still more | disastrously. In October the whole of the nine districts | of the Bombay Deccan were threatened with a serious | famine, nearly all the monsoon crops having perished, and | there having been no later rains to admit of sowing the | rabi.... The spring and summer rains again failed in | 1877 ... and added to this, the rainfall was short almost