ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 7. 
of Bourke, or in latitude 22°. The station is a large one, and the 
storm came on to the station from the north-east. It was 4 miles 
wide at entry and 6 miles wide leaving the station, thence it 
spread out towards South Australia, and watered a large tract of 
country. In January of this year another of these storms crossed 
this Colony from Milparinka to Jervis Bay, or from latitude 30° 
to 34°. There was no barometric disturbance at the time, yet the 
storm was very well marked; I mean that the central portions 
from which the heavy rain fell, and which was about 200 miles wide, 
could be traced right across country, that is, for 700 miles, travelling 
at the rate of 7 miles per hour. Along the southern side of its track 
the rain fell off abruptly, leaving a well-defined line between the 
wet and the dry country, but on the northern side, just like the 1882 
storm, the rainshadedoff gradually, watering alarge tractof country. 
Closely allied to these rain-storms, although in appearance so 
utterly different, are the great dust-storms which often pass over 
the western plains: generally more circumscribed, they nevertheless 
are of great extent, follow the same south-east course, and change 
their latitude with the peculiarities of the season. One of the best 
marked of which I have any particulars followed just the same 
track as the January rain-storm, right across the Colony, and all 
that Ihave been able to trace follow a nearly parallel course. 
At times the dust carried by these great storms is so thick and 
extensive that it blots out entirely the light of the sun and makes 
total darkness at mid-day, and often it renders the sun invisible 
and artificial light necessary indoors. Such a storm passed over 
Bourke on 12th December, 1883; the wind and dust were 
terrible for ten hours, and the oldest inhabitant had never seen 
anything like it before. This storm produced the remarkable dry 
fog noted in New England and Paterson Districts at that time, but in 
no account of it that I have received had the dust the intensity 
which marked a recent storm of the same character that passed over 
Narrandera on Feb. 6th. At Hay this storm appeared as a severe 
ordinary dust-storm; 40 miles east of Hay it made total darkness 
for a few seconds; 40 miles further east it was dark as the blackest 
