Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/26

 however, rendered mild by passing over such an expanse of ocean, and has nothing even remotely approaching to the cutting dryness of the east wind of the west of Europe. Indeed, at no time of the year has the air anything of that disagreeable harshness.

Two circumstances which, in all probability, tend in a great measure to the healthfulness of the climate are: first—the general coolness of the nights; secondly—the circumstance that wet is invariably attended with a certain degree of cold, and that consequently there is none of that warm, moist, relaxing, muggy weather so favourable to vegetable, and so pernicious to animal, or at least to human life. Another fact may be taken into consideration, which is probably not without its influence in a country abounding with forests, namely, that none of the trees are deciduous, and that such leaves as do fall seem full of an aromatic vegetable oil, which preserves them from rotting and leaves them to crumble to powder; and hence there are none of those accumulations of putrid vegetable matter which seem in Africa and America the fruitful sources of malaria and its attendants, ague and fever. The fact of the salubrity of the climate of New South Wales may be inferred as well from general testimony, founded on an experience of sixty years, as from returns laid on the table of the legislative council, from which it appears that the entire population of New South Wales on the 30th September, 1843, amounted to 164,026; the number of deaths, from the 1st of January, 1843, to that day, to 1,720, and of births to 5,387, the proportion of births being 1 in 30, and of deaths 1 in 95, for seven months; being