HOT WINDS IN AUSTRALIA. 367 



inhabited and cultivated districts, by the agency of the 

 prevailing winds. This is pretty conclusively shown, 

 because during the prevalence of these hot winds, they 

 are always found to blow from the quarter where the 

 desert is known to exist. The continent of Australia 

 for instance, is peculiarly subject to their influence, the 

 whole of the temperate regions of Australia being 

 periodically more or less affected by them, and some 

 of the highest temperatures in the world have on such 

 occasions been recorded there the thermometer some- 

 times standing for days together, at from 100 to 115 

 Fahr. in the shade, and we have seen it a good deal 

 more even than that. 



The injury done to crops and pasture lands by these 

 hot winds, is often most serious; the vegetation over 

 large areas of country being burnt up, as if it had 

 been exposed to the breath of a furnace in the 

 vicinity of the Hunter River in New South Wales, for 

 instance, on one occasion the wheat crop was destroyed 

 over some thirty miles of country. * 



It is, however, generally believed that these intensely 

 dry heats, though very oppressive, are not absolutely 

 injurious to the health of human beings f and even 

 in the Desert the same fact has been recorded, they 

 are exceedingly unpleasant and trying, but do not 

 seem to produce any serious illness. It is, of course, 

 there that the Simoom is felt in its greatest intensity, 

 and in the great Sahara, according to Count D'Escayrac 

 de Lauture, the Simoom sets in shortly after the vernal 



* See Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel for Australia, 

 edit, by Alfred R. Wallace, 1879, PP- 3^ 32. N.B. In January 1896 

 Australia was visited by a spell of hot winds for three weeks of almost 

 unexampled intensity. 



j Ibid., p. 31. 



