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Otago Daily Times, Issue 257, 16 October 1862, Page 5

■ The long-continued drought in various parts of New South Wales and Queensland has' Caused a fearful amount of mortality amongst the cuttle, and has, in-some districts, almost annihilated vegetation. The Picton correspondent of the Sydney Herald says :— <1 The long-continued drought lias dried up all appearance of vegetation, and as for sustenance for cattle, there is literally none left. The question, What is to be done with the cattle ? has now assumed a very serious aspect indeed. If something is not done, and that speedily, very few will have any stock left in a short time. The cattle are now so weak that when th^y j ay down they seldom are able to get up without help ; and day by day those to which help is of service are getting fewer and fewer. It U heartrending to see whole herds dying off. Several parties who have the means are sending their cattle away, in the hope of saving some of them ; others, less favourably situated, have nothing left bat to wait for the worst. As for the wheat crop, there can be none; and, if no change takes place, it will he impossible to put in maize Taken altogether, the prospects of the farmers are gloomy in the extreme."

According to the official report of the Sydney Mint, the quantity of gold received for coinage from 31st December, 1851, to 26th September, 1862, was 336,90903!, value L 1,280,250. The gold coin issued from the Mint during the same period ■was 5J7,4230z, value 1/2,333,000.

In a leading article on the sub] cct of Telegraphic communication with Europe; the Mnyhurouyh amd Dunolly Advertiser suvs :—" Centuries ago mankind seem to have entertained a dim belief that the time would arrive when people, widely separated by distance, -would be enabled to converse with each other at the same instant of time, by some magnetic medium. More than 250 ycar3 ago a learned Italian, named Strada, in one of his l Jr lusiones Academical, (as quoted by Addieon in the 241 st number of the Spectator), represents two fricjuJd as conversing ' by the help of a certain loadstone, which bad such virtue in it, that if it touched two several needles, when one of the needles so touched began to move, t'.ie other, though at never so great a distance, moved at the same time, and in the same manner.' In 1043, Sir Thomas Browne published his Psendodoxt* Epidemivu, in which he speaks of a ' tradition, whispered through the world,' that .such v communication is capable of being established, so that, to quote his. own words, 'at what distance of place soever, when one needle shall be removed unto any letter, the other, by a wonderful .sympathy, shall move unto the same.' These foreshadowings of the electric telegraph possess a curious interest now that we have lived to see the prophecy fulfilled. The marvellous speculations of the seventeenth century have become the accomplished facts of the nineteenth. Wnat would have been regarded as little les3 than magical then, is commonplace, trite, and familiar now ; and science is about to achieve its greatest triumph by bringing Australia and Eng.anu into telegra-

jihic union