‘eo 
20 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 
some hours after, the rain ceased, and at 3.30 a.m., another very — 
light shower fell, and that was all for days. Now the shower a — 
3.30 a.m. and all those in the afternoon, only made up @ 
0:04 inches ; the rain was therefore little more than mist ; some — 
_ times one night’s dew will measure more than that.. Again, whet — 
J. and E. Rowe's fire (wholesale chemists) took place, it had been — 
raining for two days before, and the next morning after the fire 
the weather cleared up. 
You would notice that amongst the list of fires I have put t¥0 
important explosions—the first that of 24 tons of gu” 
powder which was ona dray at Penrith, and was accidentally — 
exploded, without any rain following ; the other the great explosion , 
of nitro-glycerine on March 4, 1866, when two stone stores wel? — 
destroyed, and no rain fell; and one fire at Liverpool, where in | 
the midst of a great bush fre 1,000 tons of wood and a shed wert 
burnt without -any rain following. This gives us a meas | 
quantity of heat, and must have been very far in excess of any | 
ordinary city fire. Now, with regard to bush fires, it is a common — 
belief that they produce rain, and I have had some cases reported © | 
me where rain has followed the fire, apparently caused by it, but 7 
my own long experience of bush fires I cannot recollect one instan® — 
_ in which it was obvious that rain followed the fire ; and I think I 
need only mention the great fires which have raged in the neigh } 
bouring Colony of Victoria as well as here, during the last ihe 
months, as proof that such fires frequently take place without "a 
drop of rain following. And if these fires had not sufficient 
intensity, we can refer to the memorable Black Thursday, Feb 
ruary 6, 1851, in Victoria, when, as if to make a culmination of 
all the fires that had been burning in Australia for weeks, the 
came a fearful hot wind, which fanned the flames in Victoria until 
in their mad career they leaped from tree to tree, and became 8 | 
‘hot and furious that it seemed as if all nature was on fire. Ye 
_ Violent as was this disturbance, no rain followed it for maDY days 7 
_ A correspondent in the country, il believes that rain may = 
produced semaiea sends me the followi £ the effect | 
