AUSTRALIAN.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5629, 26 November 1889, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN.

[By Electric Telegraph.— Copyright. — Per " Press Ass'd. — Rec'd Nov 26, 1 a.m.]

MELBOURNE, Nov. 25

Parliament was prorogued this afternoon by Sir William Robinson, ActingGovernor. In the speech from the throne he said federation was inevitable and reasonable. He hoped that 'with federation the colonies would be able to join in securing complete organising without sacrificing any of the results already achieved.

SYDNEY. Nov. 2(>,

The Admiralty steamer Egcria. which has been on a sounding cruise in the South Sea Islands, has arrived from Tonga. It is the intention of the Admiralty to have her refitted, and she will resume the. survey in about two months. She reports that between Fiji and Navigator's Island the deepest sounding ever reached by a British vessel was obtained. In that locality a depth of 4,530 fathoms was recorded.

A terrific storm has been raging at the township of South, on the Darling river, 573 miles N.W. of Sydney. Several houses were unroofed, and the amount of damage occasioned in the town was considerable. While the storm was at its height, lumps of ice, quite the size of a cricket ball, fell, killing many animals, which were unable to obtain shelter from the fury of the gale.

A singular visitation of moths and butterflies has occurred iv Victoria, brought out by the early heat. On the shores of Port Phillip Bay the butterflies were tin own up after a gale in a fringe over a foot wide. The Sandhurst express was stopped by moths, which became so thick on the rails in a tunnel as to render them too gren«y for the wheels to tnivcl.