180 E. DU FAUR. 



I 



the patient investigation which our scientists have given 

 to Lunar theories, Sun-spot theories, and other universal 

 theories — if I may use the expression — which, if of any 

 force, must apply equally to all parts of our globe, it does 

 not seem too much to ask them, as Australians, to give a 

 portion of their attention, and their best influence, towards 

 carrying out a methodical and scientific investigation into 

 the secrets and changes of the i gigantic refrigerator' 1 

 which we have 'comparatively close to our doors,' in con- 

 stant conflict with the semitropical heated currents gener- 

 ated within our own continent, and into the laws and 

 periods by which either predominating influence affects the 

 climate of southern and eastern Australia. 



The Geographical Society of Australasia might commence 

 some useful work by endeavouring, through its kindred 

 society in Victoria, to verify my personal recollections of 

 earlier years ; there must be records, in some of the old 

 shipping offices in Melbourne, bearing on the subject, the 

 early files of the Age would supply many a clipper's log, 

 and there must be enough of my contemporaries still in 

 existence, who were interested in shipping matters in those 

 days, to make it probable that some of the ice-charts, which 

 I remember, might be brought to light, which would relieve 

 us from beginning again, in these later days, with quite a 

 clean sheet. 



For many years subsequent to 1857, absence from the 

 colonies and then the exigencies of heavy official and 

 business life, precluded my watching and recording the 

 trifling data bearing on the subject which the advancement 

 of steaming versus sailing traffic left available. But the 

 proposed Nordenskiold Antarctic Expedition re-awakened 



A refrigerator representing a circle of some 4,000 or 4,500 miles in 

 diameter, equal to an area of some 15 or 16 millions of square miles, may 

 fairly "be called ' gigantic' its northern limit extending to within 1,000 to 

 1,200 miles of Tasmania. 



