I
have just said that the day had been exceedingly hot, with the wind from
the N.E., a quarter from whence we might naturally have expected that it
would have blown warm; but I would observe, that before Mr. Browne and I
passed the Stony Desert on our recent excursion, the winds from that
point were unusually cold, and continued so until after we had crossed
the Desert, and pushed farther up to the north, when they changed from
cold to heat. I will not venture any conjecture as to the cause of this,
because I can give no solution to the question, but leave it to the
ingenuity of my readers, who are as well able to judge of such a fact as
myself.
I would also advert to a circumstance I neglected to mention in its
proper place, but which may be as forcibly done now as at the time it
occurred. When Mr. Browne and I were on our recent journey to the north,
after having crossed the Stony Desert, being then between it and Eyre's
Creek, about nine o'clock in the morning, we distinctly heard a report as
of a great gun discharged, to the westward, at the distance of half a
mile. On the following morning, nearly at the same hour, we again heard
the sound; but it now came from a greater distance, and consequently was
not so clear. When I was on the Darling, in lat. 30 degrees, in 1828, I
was roused from my work by a similar report; but neither on that
occasion, or on this, could I solve the mystery in which it was involved.
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