and 1860, issued by the Colonial Government Authority Days on which the temperature of the air exceeded 90° in the month of January, in the years 1858, 1859 and 1860— 1859. Day of Maximum Month. Temperature. Jan. 104.0 92.8 2 1860. Maximum Temperature. 100.5 ......... 100.4 GENERAL REMARKS. The month of January, 1860 will no doubt be long remembered for its intense heat, closely assimilating in this respect with the corresponding month in 1858, when a still higher temperature was attained. In each the temperature rose above 90° on 18 days, and above 100° in 1858 on 12 days, and on 11 days in 1860. The mean temperature of the month was only 07 in excess of 1858, and 7.8 and 5.0 in excess of 1857 and 1858 respectively. As compared with January, 1858; the days on the average were hotter; the mean of the highest day temperatures being 2.5 higher, and the nights cooler, the mean of the lowest night temperatures being 14 lower. The highest temperature in January, in each of the three last years, has somewhat curiously occurred about the same part of the month viz: 1163 on the 26th in 1858; 110.5 on the 24th, in 1859; and 113.7 on the 21st and 22nd in the year 1860. It will readily be seen from these official tables and remarks that continuous hot weather is not exceptional but an annual infliction in South Australia, and I have given the details of one month's temperature for three years to prove that the blast furnace system is a perpetual visitant on the shores of South Australia, and the records of the other months carry out the same views of extreme range of temperature and extraordinary transitions in the course of only twenty-four hours. The greatest daily range observed amounted to 48°; however incredible this may appear, and not to be realized by the English public, which can be illustrated by supposing one morning you perspire under a hot sun, the thermometer at 80° in the shade and by the next you saw the thermometer down to 32° the freezing point. The thermometer has ranged above 90° in the shade in October and from that period at intervals to the month of May so that only four months out of the twelve are exempt from having occasional heat greater than that experienced in England on a hot day in July. CHAPTER III. A FINE DAY AT THE ANTIPODES. It is actually a luxury to breathe the air at this season of the year. Writer on South Australia. ON Saturday, the 21st January, 1860, the colony experienced a day of heat, dust, and hot winds perhaps unequalled in intensity in the memory of the oldest inhabitant. On this day the thermometer reached the highest point known in South Australia, and, I believe, the highest range of natural heat ever observed by any traveller in the known world. During the whole day the fiery blast swept on and continued until the following day, when the thermometer fell and rain ensued, and the atmosphere cooled down a little, while the earth literally steamed for hours with evaporation. The highest authenticated range in Adelaide was 1171° in the shade at Mr. Muirhead's shop in King William Street, and 158° in the sun; whilst at Gawler Town (27 miles North of Adelaide) the glass reached 123° in the shade, and 168° in the sun, about the region where spirits are supposed to boil by scientific authorities. At the Observer newspaper office, imagined to be from obvious reasons one of the coolest localities in the colony, in a wellshaded locality according to their own account, the range was 1121° at 2 o'clock. My thermometer at Norwood, about two miles from Adelaide, stood at 116° in the shade, at 3 o'clock on Saturday, and at 107° in the shade, at 10 A.M. on Sunday morning. Imagine the feelings of any individual under the infliction of this interesting process of cookery, called "slow baking." Those who have been prone to groan at the heat of even an exceptional English or Continental summer, and declare life a burthen, and recline languidly on sofas with the comforts and amenities of social and civilized life, transport yourselves in imagination to South Australia, and realize if you can a climate with a range of thermometer about 30° in the shade higher than you are liable to be exposed to in England, and this extraordinary heat accompanied by a hurricane of hot sand, dust, and small stones.The following table of interesting circumstances in the range of temperature is extracted from Professor Graham's Chemistry, and was forwarded by a gentleman (Mr. John A. Bruce) of Kooringa to the Adelaide papers, commenting on the fact that the heat of Saturday was greater in Adelaide than the greatest natural heat hitherto observed. FAHRENHEIT. +320 50.7 81.5 98.0 Ice melts. TABLE. Mean temperature of London. 1173 Highest natural temperature ob served. Hot wind in Upper Egypt (Burckhardt). 176.94 Alcohol boils. 212.0 Water boils; and 117.5 123.0 Heat observed in Adelaide, South Heat observed in Gawler Town, B |