Climate.

10. From its geographical position Victoria enjoys a climate more suitable to the European constitution than any other colony upon the continent of Australia, as within a comparatively limited area it possesses the climatic advantages of the more favoured portions of Southern Europe. Upon examining a chart showing isothermal lines, it will be found that Melbourne is situated upon or near the line corresponding with that in the Northern Hemisphere on which Marseilles, Bordeaux, Bologna, Nice, Verona, and Madrid are situated. The difference, however, between summer and winter, and the hottest and coldest month, is far less in Melbourne than in any of these places. In the ten years ended with 1879, the maximum temperature in the shade was 111°, which occurred once only, the minimum was 27°, which also occurred only once, and the mean was 57°. Upon the average on four days during the year the thermometer rises above 100° in the shade; and generally on about three nights during the year it falls below freezing point. The mean atmospheric pressure, noted at an observatory 91 feet above the sea-level, was in the same ten years 29.93 inches; the average cumber of wet days was 132, and the average yearly rainfall was 28 inches.