lank is hot, not to say torrid; a part of it is fertile,
the rest is desert; it is not liberally watered; it has no towns. One
has only to cross the mountains of New South Wales and descend into the
westward-lying regions to find that he has left the choice climate behind
him, and found a new one of a quite different character. In fact, he
would not know by the thermometer that he was not in the blistering
Plains of India. Captain Sturt, the great explorer, gives us a sample of
the heat.

"The wind, which had been blowing all the morning from the N.E.,
increased to a heavy gale, and I shall never forget its withering
effect. I sought shelter behind a large gum-tree, but the blasts of
heat were so terrific that I wondered the very grass did not take
fire. This really was nothing ideal: everything both animate and
inanimate gave way before it; the horses stood with their backs to
the wind and their noses to the ground, without the muscular
strength to raise their heads; the birds were mute, and the leaves
of the trees under which we were sitting fell like a snow shower
around us. At noon I took a thermometer graded to 127 deg., out of
my box, and observed that the mercury was up to 125. Thinking that
it had been unduly influenced, I put it in the fork of a tree close
to me, sheltered alike from the wind and the sun. I went to examine
it about an hour afterwards, when I found the mercury had risen to
the-top of the instrument and had burst the bulb, a circumstance
that I believe no traveler has ever before had to record. I cannot
find language to convey to the reader's mind an idea of the intense
and oppressive nature of the heat that prevailed."

That hot wind sweeps over Sydney sometimes, and brings with it what is
called a "dust-storm." It is said that most Australian towns are
acquainted with the dust-storm. I think I know what it is like, for the
following description by Mr. Gape tallies very well with the alkali
duststorm of Nevada, if you leave out the "shovel" part. Still the
shovel part is a pretty important part, and seems to indicate that my
Nevada storm is but a poor thing, after all.

"As we proceeded the altitude became less, and the heat
proportionately greater until we reached Dubbo, which is only 600
feet above sea-level. It is a pretty town, built on an extensive
plain . . . . A