Page:Handbook of Western Australia.djvu/62

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
48
Western Australia.

ductive portion of the Colony, having the most varied surface, the best climate, and affording agricultural aa well as pastoral districts. No country is capable of producing a greater abundance of fruit and vegetables. It is, emphatically, a land of corn, wine, oil, fruits, flowers, milk, and honey. The more extensive pastoral districts must necessarily prove less populous, yet in them there sire agricultural areas, as at the mouths of the Greenough and Irwin, and mineral districts, as at Northampton, near Champion Bay, which can afford occupation for large numbers of people. The agricultural areas of the pastoral districts, although comparatively small and scattered, may be estimated as sufficient to provide food for any future population. The settled districts of the Colony are connected with the coasts by the rivers, and it is of these only that the climate and productions can be stated with any certainty. The results of meteorological observations in the different districts are given in the following tables:—

The average temperature and atmospheric pressure, taken from the observations made by the late W. H. Knight, Esq., at Perth, are, during the years 1867-8-9:—

Barometer, Max. 30·47 May, Aug., 1868, and June, 1869
Do Min. 30·13 January, 69
Thermometer, Max. 107 March, 68
Do. Min. } day 40 July, 1867, August, 1869
night 38 August, 1867-69
Daily Mean, Max. 79·8 February, 1867
Do. Min. 57·1 July, 1869

The greatest rainfall was in the month of June, having been 13·91 inches in 1868, the average of the three years being 10·85 inches for that month. The least rainfall was in December, 1867, ·01, and in January, 1868, ·01 inch; in the months of February and March no rains fell.