1894, Ivan Dexter, Talmud: A Strange Narrative of Central Australia, published in serial form in Port Adelaide News and Lefevre's Peninsula Advertiser (SA), Chapter I, http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks16/1600641.txt Even the beneficient rainfall had failed to attract animal life to the basaltic waste, and the genius of silence seemed to brood over all.
Source: wiktionary