1845, 14th January : T h e thermometer was 122 degrees in the sun. l8 45> 2 5th March : O n the Racecourse the thermometer was 135 degrees in the sun. 1846, 6th June, at 7 a.m. : T h e thermometer was at 28 degrees, or 4 degrees below freezing point. In recording this fact the Herald of the 9 th declares " that the loyvest temperature ofthe thermometer on record in Port Phillip yvas at sunrise on the 23rd December, 1836 — 20 degrees." This is almost incredible. 1846, n t h August, at night: Thermometer 23 degrees; and at sunrise of the 12th, 25 degrees at the Merri Creek. 1847: O n the night of the 19th June the barometer was at 28 degrees 90 minutes, a degree of depression never noted before in the Province. It was attended by few remarkable atmospherical disturbances, but there was slight rain in Melbourne. T h e country round Seymour had been drenched with heavy rain for several days previous, and during the night was swept by a violent gale of wind, almost a hurricane, which uprooted several trees and inflicted considerable damage upon the settlers located about that quarter. 1851, 6th February (Black Thursday): T h e thermometer of Fahrenheit was n o degrees in the shade and 129 degrees in the sun at the shop of Brentani, a jeweller in Collins Street. In another place at n a.m. it was 117 degrees in the shade, at 1 p.m. fell to 109 degrees, and at 4 was up to 113. It is the opinion of old colonists that during thefirstfifteenyears of the White settlement (1835-50) the winters yvere wetter and colder, and the summers warmer and more hot-windy than subsequently. During thefirstweek of M a y in 1843 and 1847 hot winds in a very modified degree actually visited Melbourne and its neighbourhood. Snow was k n o w n to have fallen only three times in or near Melbourne—viz, 14th July, 1840, and 31st August, 1849, in the town, and 27th June, 1845, at Heidelberg. There has only been one occasion when the snoyv came doyvn in considerable quantity—i.e., 1 8 4 9 — a n account of yvhich is given in a previous chapter. EARTHQUAKES.
The first subterranean convulsion noticed by European residents in Port Phillip has given rise to some discussion as to its date, and more than one writer has affirmed that it occurred during Sir Richard Bourke's visit to Melbourne, in March, 1837, when it so alarmed his Excellency as to cause him to hesitate about proclaiming a toyvnship on the site of Melbourne. Sir Richard's decision as to the town yvas formed on the 4th March, for on that day he rode over the place, and determined upon having a toyvnship established there. Captain King was with him, but in his diary of his trip from Sydney is silent on the subject; and, singular to yvrite, Mr. Robert Hoddle, the then Principal Officer of Survey, before his death in 1881, sent m e a verbal ansyver to a yvntten query, that he recollected nothing yvhatever about an earthquake at the time. Mr. Hoddle also kept a precise journal of the events of the period, and in the portions for March, 1837, with a perusal of which I was favoured, I found not a word referring to so important an event. Nevertheless, there was an earthquake, and in March, too, but towards the close of the month. Mr. T h o m a s Halfpenny was then a publican in a wee wattle-and-daub bunk of a tavern, perched on the ground n o w occupied by the Theatre Royal, in Bourke Street, and one sultry night towards the end of March, sleepless from the heat, he suddenly felt a movement as if some supernatural visitant had gently given him a lift. H e kept wondering until morning as to the cause of the commotion, for, though he lived by the dispersion of spirituous influences, he had no belief in spiritual agencies. O n opening his bar to serve some early birds with a morning dram, to his astonishment he learned that a shock of earthquake had been felt by several of the inhabitants during the night. O n referring to Mr. Robert Russell, a sort of living oracle in an age apparently so remote, he assured m e that there was an earthquake, and that he believed it occurred on the 25th March; but he promised to hunt it up from a cairn of old memoranda, which he religiously preserves as a memento of " Auld Lang Syne." H e writes : — " Y o u asked m e to state what I remember of the earthquake. Simply this: That D'Arcy and I were sleeping on the same stretcher, and that I got up to look under it, feeling as though some large animal had crept under and was lifting m e up—bodily."
