1833. Lieut. Breton, R.N., `Excursions in New South Wales andVan Diemen's Land,' p. 293:
«It sometimes happens that a change takes place from a hot windto a `brickfielder,' on which occasions the thermometer hasbeen known to fall, within half an hour, upwards of fiftydegrees! That is to say, from above 100 degrees to 50degrees! A brickfielder is a southerly wind, and it takes itslocal name from the circumstances of its blowing over, andbringing into town the flames [sic] of a large brick-field: itis nearly as detestable as a hot wind.»
[Lieut. Breton must have had a strong imagination. Thebrickfields, at that date, were a mile away from the town, andthe bringing in of their flames was an impossibility.Perhaps, however, the word is a misprint for fumes; yeteven then this earliest quotation indicates part of the sourceof the subsequent confusion of meaning. The maincharacteristic of the true brickfielder was neither flames nor fumes, – – and certainly not heat, – – butchoking dust.]
1839. W. H. Leigh, `Reconnoitering Voyages, Travels, andAdventures in the new Colony of South Australia,' etc., p. 184:
«Whirlwinds of sand come rushing upon the traveller, halfblinding and choking him, – – a miniature sirocco, and decidedlycousin-german to the delightful sandy puffs so frequent at CapeTown. The inhabitants call these miseries `Brickfielders,' butwhy they do so I am unable to divine; probably because they arein their utmost vigour on a certain hill here, where bricks aremade.»
[This writer makes no allusion to the temperature of the wind,whether hot or cold, but lays stress on its especialcharacteristic, the dust. His comparison with the siroccochiefly suggests the clouds of sand brought by that wind fromthe Libyan Desert, with its accompanying thick haze anddarkness (`half blinding and choking'), rather than itsrelaxing warmth.]
1844. John Rae, `Sydney Illustrated,' p. 26:
«The `brickfielder' is merely a colonial name for a violentgust of wind, which, succeeding a season of great heat, rushesin to supply the vacuum and equalises the temperature of theatmosphere; and when its baneful progress is marked, sweepingover the city in thick clouds of brick-coloured dust (from thebrickfields), it is time for the citizens to close the doorsand windows of their dwellings, and for the sailor to take morethan half his canvas in, and prepare for a storm.»
[Here the characteristic is again dust from thebrickfields, as the origin of the name, with cold as anaccompaniment.]
1844. Mrs.Meredith, `Notes and Sketches of New South Wales,'p. 44:
«These dust winds are locally named `brickfielders,' from thedirection in which they come» [i.e. from neighbouringsandhills, called the brickfields].
[Here dust is the only characteristic observed, with thedirection of the wind as the origin of its name.]
1845. J. O. Balfour, `Sketch of New South Wales,' p. 4:
«The greatest peculiarity in the climate is what is called bycolonists a brickfielder. This wind has all thecharacteristics of a sirocco in miniature . . . . Returninghome, he discovers that the house is full of sand; that thebrickfielder has even insinuated itself between the leaves ofhis books; at dinner he will probably find that his favouritefish has been spoiled by the brickfielder. Nor is this all;for on retiring to rest he will find that the brickfielder hasintruded even within the precincts of his musquito curtains.»
[Here again its dust is noted as the distinguishingfeature of the wind, just as sand is the distinguishing featureof the `sirocco' in the Libyan Desert, and precipitatedsand, – – `blood rain' or `red snow,' – – a chief character of thesirocco 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 invariablysucceeded by what is there called a `brickfielder,' which is astrong southerly wind, which soon cools the air, and greatlyreduces the temperature.»
[Here the cold temperature of the brickfielder is described,but not its dust, and the writer compares the hot windwhich precedes the brickfielder with the sirocco. He in factthinks only of the heat of the sirocco, but the two precedingwriters are thinking of its sand, its thick haze, its qualityof blackness and its suffocating character, – – all whichapplied accurately to the true brickfielder.]
1853. Rev. H. Berkeley Jones, `Adventures in Australia in 1852and 1853,' p. 228:
«After the languor, the lassitude, and enervation which somepersons experience during these hot blasts, comes the`Brickfielder,' or southerly burster.»
[Cold temperature noticed, but not dust.]
1853. `Fraser's Magazine,' 48, p. 515:
«When the wind blows strongly from the southward, it is whatthe Sydney people call a `brickfielder'; that is, it carrieswith 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 dust, not the temperature, whichdetermines the name.]
1861. T. McCombie,' Australian Sketches,' p. 79:
«She passed a gang of convicts, toiling in a broiling`brickfielder.'»
1862. F. J. Jobson, `Australia with Notes by the Way,' p. 155:
«The `brickfielders' are usually followed, before the daycloses, with `south-busters' [sic.].»
1886. F. Cowan, `Australia, a Charcoal Sketch':
«The Buster and Brickfielder: austral red-dust blizzard;and red-hot Simoom.»
This curious inversion of meaning (the change from cold to hot)may be traced to several causes. It may arise – – (a) From the name itself. People in Melbourne and Adelaide,catching at the word brickfielder as a name for a dusty wind, and knowing nothing of the origin of thename, would readily adapt it to their own severe hot northwinds, which raise clouds of dust all day, and are describedaccurately as being `like a blast from a furnace,' or `thebreath of a brick-kiln.' Even a younger generation in Sydney,having received the word by colloquial tradition, losing itsorigin, and knowing nothing of the old brickfields, might applythe word to a hot blast in the same way.
(b) From the peculiar phenomenon. – – A certain cyclonic change oftemperature is a special feature of the Australian coastaldistricts. A raging hot wind from the interior desert (northwind in Melbourne and Adelaide, west wind in Sydney) will blowfor two or three days, raising clouds of dust; it will besuddenly succeeded by a ` Southerly Buster' from theocean, the cloud of dust being greatest at the moment ofchange, and the thermometer falling sometimes forty or fiftydegrees in a few minutes. The Sydney word brickfielderwas assigned originally to the latter part – – the dustycold change. Later generations, losing the finer distinction,applied the word to the whole dusty phenomenon,and ultimatelyspecialized it to denote not so much the extreme dustiness ofits later period as the more disagreeable extreme heat of itsearlier phase.
(c) From the apparent, though not real, confusion of terms, bythose who have described it as a `sirocco.' – – The word sirocco (spelt earlier schirocco, and in Spanishand other languages with the sh sound, not the s)is the Italian equivalent of the Arabic root sharaga,`it rose.' The name of the wind, sirocco, alludes inits original Arabic form to its rising, with its cloud of sand,in the desert high-lands of North Africa. True, it is definedby Skeat as `a hot wind,' but that is only a part of itsdefinition. Its marked characteristic is that it is sand-laden, densely hazy and black, and therefore`choking,' like the brickfielder. The not unnaturalassumption that writers by comparing a brickfielder witha sirocco, thereby imply that a brickfielder is ahot wind, is thus disposed of by this characteristic, and bythe notes on the passages quoted. They were dwelling only onits choking dust, and its suffocating qualities, – – `aminiature sirocco.' See the following quotations on thischaracter of the sirocco: – – 1841. `Penny Magazine,' Dec. 18, p. 494:
«The Islands of Italy, especially Sicily and Corfu, arefrequently visited by a wind of a remarkable character, towhich the name of sirocco, scirocco, or schirocco, has beenapplied. The thermometer rises to a great height, but the airis generally thick and heavy . . . . People confine themselveswithin doors; the windows and doors are shut close, to preventas much as possible the external air from entering; . . . but afew hours of the tramontane, or north wind whichgenerally succeeds it, soon braces them up again. [Compare thiswhole phenomenon with (b) above.] There are some peculiarcircumstances attending the wind. . . . Dr. Benza, an Italianphysician, states: – – `When the sirocco has been impetuous andviolent, and followed by a shower of rain, the rain has carriedwith it to the ground an almost impalpable red micaceous sand,which I have collected in large quantities more than once inSicily. . . . When we direct our attention to the island ofCorfu, situated some distance eastward of Sicily, we find thesirocco assuming a somewhat different character. . . . Themore eastern sirocco might be called a refreshing breeze[sic]. . . . The genuine or black sirocco (as it is called)blows from a point between south-east and south-south-east.'»
1889. W. Ferrell, `Treatise on Winds,' p. 336:
«The dust raised from the Sahara and carried northward by thesirocco often falls over the countries north of theMediterranean as `blood rain,' or as `red snow,' the moistureand the sand falling together. . . .The temperature never risesabove 95 degrees.»
1889. `The Century Dictionary,' s.v. Sirocco:
«(2) A hot, dry, dust-laden wind blowing from the highlands ofAfrica to the coasts of Malta, Sicily and Naples. . . . Duringits prevalence the sky is covered with a dense haze.»
(3) The illustrative quotations on brickfielder, up tothis point, have been in chronological consecutive order. Thefinal three quotations below show that while the original truedefinition and meaning, (1), are still not quite lost, yetauthoritative writers find it necessary to combat the modernpopular inversion, (2).
1863. Frank Fowler, `The Athenaeum,' Feb. 21, p. 264, col. 1:
«The `brickfielder' is not the hot wind at all; it is butanother name for the cold wind, or southerly buster, whichfollows the hot breeze, and which, blowing over an extensivesweep of sandhills called the Brickfields, semi-circlingSydney, carries a thick cloud of dust (or `brickfielder')across the city.»
[The writer is accusing Dr. Jobson (see quotation 1862, above)of plagiarism from his book `Southern Lights and Shadows.']
1890. Lyth, `Golden South,' vol. ii. p. 11:
«A dust which covered and penetrated everything and everywhere.
This is generally known as a `brickfielder.'»
1896. `Three Essays on Australian Weather,' `On SoutherlyBuster,' by H. A. Hunt, p. 17:
«In the early days of Australian settlement, when the shores ofPort Jackson were occupied by a sparse population, and theregion beyond was unknown wilderness and desolation, a greatpart of the Haymarket was occupied by the brickfields fromwhich Brickfield Hill takes its name. When a `SoutherlyBurster' struck the infant city, its approach was alwaysheralded by a cloud of reddish dust from this locality, and inconsequence the phenomenon gained the local name of`brickfielder.' The brickfields have long since vanished, andwith them the name to which they gave rise, but the windcontinues to raise clouds of dust as of old under its modernname of `Southerly Burster.»