dust fill the air, and whirlwinds cross the plains, but the dryness of the Australian atmosphere considerably influences the feelings on such occasions, and certainly produces a different effect upon the system from that which would be produced at a much lower temperature in a more humid climate; for, no doubt, it is to the united effects of heat and moisture, where they more or less exist, that the healthiness or unhealthiness of a country may be ascribed.  In such countries, generally speaking, either teaming vapours, or malaria from dense woods or swamps naturally tries the constitution, but to its extreme dryness, and the absence of all vegetable decay, it appears to me that the general salubrity of South-east Australia is to be attributed.  So rarified, indeed, is the atmosphere, that it causes an elasticity of spirits unknown in a heavier temperature.  So the hot winds, of which I have been speaking, are not felt in the degree we should be led to suppose.  Like the air the spirits are buoyant and light, and it is for its disagreeableness at the time, not any after effects that a hot wind is to be dreaded.  It is hot, and that is all you can say; you have a reluctance to move, and may not rest so well as usual; but the spirits are in no way affected; nor indeed, in the ordinary transactions of business does a hot wind make the slightest difference.  If there are three or four months of warm weather, there are eight or nine months of the year, during which the weather is splendid.  Nothing can exceed the autumn, winter, and spring of that transparent region, where the firmament is as bright as it would appear from the summit of Mount Blanc.  In the middle of winter you enjoy a fire, the evenings are cold, and occasionally the nights are frosty.  It is then necessary to put on warmer clothing, and a good surtout, buttoned across the breast, is neither an uncomfortable nor unimportant addition.  Having said thus much of the general salubrity of the climate of South Australia, I would observe, in reference to what may be said against it, that the changes of temperature are sudden and unexpected, the thermometer rising or falling 50 degrees in an hour or two.  Whether it is owing to the properties I have ascribed, that the climate of this place as also of Sydney should be fatal to consumptive habits, I do not know, but in both places I have understood that such is the case, and in both I have had reason to regret instances.  It has been said that influenza prevailed last year in Adelaide to a great extent, and that it carried off a great many children and elderly persons.  An epidemic, similar in its symptoms, may have prevailed there, and been severe in its progress, but it hardly seems probable that the epidemic of this country should have been conveyed through constant change of air, the best cure for such a disease, to so distant a part of the world.  With all its salubrity, indeed, I believe it may be said, that South Australia is subject to the more unimportant maladies like other countries, but that there are no indigenous disorders of a dangerous kind, and that it is a country which may strictly be called one of the healthiest in the world, and will, in all probability, continue so, as long as it shall be kept clear of European diseases.