BRICKFIELDER  , a

term used in Australia for a hot scorching wind blowing from the interior, where the sandy wastes, bare of vegetation in summer, are intensely heated by the sun . This' hot wind blows strongly, often for several days. at a time, defying all attempts to keep the dust down, and parching all vegetation . It is in one sense a healthy wind, as, being exceedingly dry and hot, it destroys many injurious germs of disease . The northern brickfielder is almost invariably followed by a strong " southerly buster'," cloudy and cool from the ocean . The two winds are due to the same cause, viz. a cyclonic system over the Australian Bight . These systems frequently extend inland as a narrow V-shaped depression (the apex northward), bringing the winds from the north on their eastern sides and from the south on their western . Hence as the narrow system passes eastward the wind suddenly changes from north to south, and the thermometer has been known to fall fifteen degrees in twenty minutes .