GEOGRAPHY AND ANTIQUITIES. 395 



adjoining regions entirely corroborated this assumption. The discoveries of 

 Captain Sturt, in his last expedition in particular, indicated the very nest and 

 hot-bed of the winds. The situation of Captain Sturt's desert was such that 

 there was good reason to think its influences would extend to the whole of 

 the coasts, even to those of Western Australia, which were the furthest from 

 it. namely, about 1,350 geographical miles; unless the wind blowing from it 

 were intercepted or deflected in the intervening spaces by mountains, or else 

 ameliorated by countries of different character. The influence of the hot 

 winds from the Sahara had been observed in vessels traversing the Atlantic 

 at a distance of upwards of 1,100 geographical miles from the African shores, 

 by the coating of impalpable dust upon the sails. Mr. Peterniaun proceeded 

 to describe the results of his investigations with respect to the causes of the hot 

 winds, and observed that the heat of the winds in southern and eastern Australia 

 was far more intense than in the north-eastern parts. He then remarked that 

 he believed a great part of the interior of Australia to consist of sterile 

 deserts ; that the Torrens Basin and Sturt's Stony Desert formed the centre of 

 the largest of these deserts, which probably extended from 200 to 300 miles 

 around the latter, and that a fringe of 200 to 300 miles extended all along the 

 "great Australian bight to Western Australia, and along the western coasts as 

 far as the Gascoyne Basin, or even the river Fitzroy. It also appeared to 

 him that the whole of north-west Australia north of Fitzroy river, as far as 

 the head of Carpentaria Gulf, was a region of the most promising character, 

 and that from this region a spur of more or less elevated land extended as 

 far as the cluster of mountains discovered by Sir Thomas Mitchell, and which 

 gave birth to many beautiful rivers flowing in all directions of the compass. 

 This spur would necessarily form a bar between Sturt's desert and the Gulf 

 of Carpentaria. It seemed to him most probable, that this promising district 

 of north-west Australia extended far to the south, to the middle of the con- 

 tinent, and beyond it at least to the latitude of Gascoyne river. One signi- 

 ficant fact supported the latter opinion, and that was the occurrence of large 

 trees which had been floated down the rivers of north-west Australia, 

 and found at their deboucheres an occurrence unknown in south-western 

 Australia. 



PROPOSED CATALOGUE OF PHILOSOPHICAL MEMOIKS. 



At the last meeting of the British Association, a committee was appointed 

 to take into consideration a communication from Professor Henry of Washing- 

 ton, containing a proposal for the publication of Philosophical Memoirs 

 scattered throughout the Transactions of Societies in Europe and America, 

 with the offer of co-operation on the part of the Smithsonian Institution to the 

 extent of preparing and publishing, in accordance with the general plan 

 which might be adopted by the British Association, a catalogue of all the 

 American Memoirs of Physical Science. The committee who were instructed 

 to consider the best system of arrangement, and report thereon, reported as 

 follows : They understand the proposal of the Smithsonian Institution to be, 

 that a separate catalogue should be prepared and published for America. In 

 the opinion of the committee, the catalogue should embrace the mathematical 



