Page:The Art of Living in Australia.djvu/54

 will apply to all Victoria except the mountain ranges, where all the climatic elements vary with the altitude.

The climate of Adelaide is certainly healthy, and, with the exception of the extreme heat occasionally experienced in summer, the weather may be described as enjoyable. It must be remembered, however, that these high temperatures are always accompanied by extreme dryness, the wet bulb thermometer usually reading at such times from 30° to 35°, or even more, below the temperature of the air. The heat is, therefore, more bearable than if it was combined with the humid atmosphere. When the thermometer stands perhaps at something over 100°, the wet bulb thermometer will show 65°, and it is this which enables persons to bear the heat of the summer and carry on their usual pursuits with less inconvenience and discomfort than is felt in tropical and damp climates, though the temperature may be 15° or 20° lower, but nearly saturated with aqueous vapour, as at Port Darwin, where during the rainy season of the north-west monsoon the thermometer may stand at only 88°, whilst the wet bulb at the same time indicates 86°. Such an atmosphere, it need hardly be said, is far more enervating than the hot and dry air of the Adelaide plains. The summer, which may be termed warm and dry, usually extends over, say, five months; and during the remainder of the year the climate is simply perfect. The temperature in mid-winter over the Adelaide plains rarely, if ever, reaches the freezing point, although there may be sharp frosts, and on still clear nights, so frequently experienced, copious dews. On the ranges, and on the high lying plains 150 miles north of Adelaide, lower temperatures are reached, indeed in some years there have been falls of snow.

The climatic features of Brisbane are, as a mean expression, decidedly semi-tropical. The months from October to March may be classed as tropical, when vegetation makes