South Wales,' p. 4:

"The greatest peculiarity in the climate is what is called by
colonists a brickfielder. This wind has all the
characteristics of a sirocco in miniature . . . . Returning
home, he discovers that the house is full of sand; that the
brickfielder has even insinuated itself between the leaves of
his books; at dinner he will probably find that his favourite
fish has been spoiled by the brickfielder. Nor is this all;
for on retiring to rest he will find that the brickfielder has
intruded even within the precincts of his musquito curtains."

[Here again its <i>dust</i> is noted as the distinguishing
feature of the wind, just as sand is the distinguishing feature
of the `sirocco' in the Libyan Desert, and precipitated
sand,--`blood rain' or `red snow,'--a chief character of the
sirocco after it reaches Italy.]

1847. Alex. Marjoribanks, `Travels in New South Wales,' p. 61:

"The hot winds which resemble the siroccos in Sicily are,
however, a drawback . . . but they are almost invariably
succeeded by what is there called a `brickfielder,' which is a
strong southerly wind, which soon cools the air, and greatly
reduces the temperature."

[Here the cold temperature of the brickfielder is described,
but not its <i>dust</i>, and the writer compares the hot wind
which precedes the brickfielder with the sirocco. He in fact
thinks only of the heat of the sirocco, but the two preceding
writers are thinking of its sand, its thick haze, its quality
of <i>blackness</i> and its suffocating character,--all which
applied accurately to the true <i>brickfielder</i>.]

1853. Rev. H. Berkeley Jones, `Adventures in Australia in 1852
and 1853,' p. 228:

"After the languor, the lassitude, and enervation which some
persons experience during these hot blasts, comes the
`Brickfielder,' or southerly burster."

[Cold temperature noticed, but not <i>dust</i>.]

1853. `Fraser's Magazine,' 48, p. 515:

"When the wind blows strongly from the southward, it is what
the Sydney people call a `brickfielder'; that is, it carries
with it dense clouds of red dust or sand, like brick dust,
swept from the light soil which adjoins the town on that side,
and so thick that the houses and streets are actually hidden;
it is a darkness that may be felt."

[Here it is the <i>dust</i>, not the temperature, which
determines the name.]

(2) The very opposite to the original meaning,--a severe hot
wind. In this inverted sense the wor