TOWN OF HEAT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 85, Issue 43, 20 February 1941, Page 8

TOWN OF HEAT

MARBLE BAR’S RECORD

GREAT BEER CONSUMPTION “FIFTEEN POTS EACH DAY.” SYDNEY, Dec. 2. Marble Bar, Western Australian mining centre, has earned a reputation as Australia’s hottest settled area. Up to yesterday, the town established a record of 109 successive days with the temperature of more than 100 degrees. Located in a pocket in the hills, 120 miles inland from Port Hedland, Marble Bar must always be hot. It is only 595 ft. above sea' level, and is open to the inflow of heat from the dry desert region to the south-east. For seven months of the year, from October to April, a day with a maximum reading of less than 90 degrees is 'rare. In a normal year, 250 days are experienced with a maximum of 90 degrees or more. The average number of centuries (not consecutive) for one year is 162. Highest temperature ever recorded at Marble Bar was 120.5 degrees in January, 1905, and again in January, 1922. Since the great heat, says the licensee of the one hotel, beei’ consumption has risen amazingly. Average consumption by his regular customers, he says, is 15 pots a day, or between 90 and 100 pots a week. “That,” said the licensee to-day, “does not tak4 into account the bottled beer carried home.” When a successful miner comes to town with his gold, he must pay lor drinks for everyone—or as many of the 877 residents as claim the privilege. To make sure, the townspeople book up their beer to the gold-finder's account, and it is rarely that the bill is not honoured. There have been instances of miners trying to get their gold to the bank without their friends knowing, but, like the golfer who holes in one, they seldom escape the penalty of their luck.