CLIMATE, ETC.
The climate of this island is equally healthy, and much more congenial to the European constitution, than that of Port Jackson. The north-west winds, which are there productive of such violent variations of temperature, are here unknown; and neither the summers, nor winters, are subject to any great extremes of heat, or cold. The frosts, indeed, are much more severe, and of much longer duration; and the mountains with which this island abounds, are covered with snow during the greater part of the year; but in the vallies it never lingers on the ground more than a few hours. Upon an average, the mean difference of temperature, between these settlements and those on New Holland, (I speak of such as are to the eastward of the Blue Mountains; for the country to the westward of them, it has been already stated, is equally cold with any part of Van Diemen’s Land,) may be estimated at ten degrees of Fahrenheit, at all seasons of the year.
The prevailing diseases are the same as at Port Jackson: i. e. phthisis, and dysentery; but the former is not so common. Rheumatic complaints, however, which are scarcely known there, exist here to a considerable extent.
SOIL, ETC.
In this island, as in New Holland, there is every diversity of soil, but certainly in proportion to the surface of the two countries, this contains, comparatively, much less of an indifferent quality. Large tracts of land perfectly free from timber or underwood, and covered with the most luxuriant herbage, are to be found in all directions; but more particularly in the environs of Port Dalrymple. This sort of land is invariably of the very best description, and millions of acres still remain unappropriated, which are capable of being instantly converted to all the purposes of husbandry. There the colonist has no expence to incur in clearing his farm: