The Art of Living in Australia: Together with Three Hundred Australian Cookery Recipes and Accessory Kitchen Information by Mrs. H. Wicken

term "humidity." The humidity of the atmosphere is defined as the degree of its approach to saturation. Air completely saturated is represented by 100, and that absolutely free of vapour by 0. As a matter of fact, however, the latter never occurs; even in the driest regions of Arabia a humidity of 10 per cent. is almost unknown. For its estimation the Wet and Dry Bulb thermometers are employed. These consist of two ordinary thermometers. One has its bulb exposed so as to register the temperature of the air. The bulb of the other is covered with muslin; this latter material being kept wet through its connection with a cotton wick dipping into a vessel of water. The water ascends from this vessel by capillary attraction, spreads over the muslin, and evaporates quickly or slowly, according to the dryness or moistness of the atmosphere. Thus when the air is driest the difference between the two thermometers will be greatest, and, on the contrary, when it is completely saturated with moisture the two readings will be almost identical. New South Wales.--A considerable part of the colony, forming the western plains, is subject to great heat, caused, no doubt, by the sun's great power on treeless plains, and the almost total absence of cooling winds; yet, although in summer the temperature here frequently rises over 100 degrees, and sometimes up to 120 degrees, owing to the cold at night and in winter the mean temperatures are not greater than those of corresponding latitudes in the northern hemisphere. This region of the colony is remarkably dry, and stock of all kinds thrive well and are very free from disease. At Bourke, the driest place in the colony, the humidity for a long series of years is--in the spring 51 degrees, in the summer 49 degrees, in the autumn 61 degrees, and in the winter 74 degrees. At Sydney the humidity in the Spring is 69 degrees, in the summer 70 degrees, in the autumn 79 degrees, and in the winter 79 degrees. Victoria.--The humidity of the air of Melbourne is low, the average