On our visits to other great capitals we have found steamers unloading their cargoes in the very heart of the city; but Adelaide, founded in 1836 and named after the wife of King William IV., is neither on the sea nor on a navigable river. The original settlers were aiming at a purely agricultural colony, and so chose a position a few miles inland in the midst of fertile land and pleasant scenery. So we must land at Port Adelaide and take the train.

Partly owing to the separation of the port from the 1 city, partly owing to the slower and more even growth of South Australia, Adelaide seems quieter and less crowded than Melbourne or Sydney, and its inhabitants consider it to be the model capital of Eastern Australia. King William Street, which we see here, with the 2 statue of Colonel Light, the founder of the city, in the foreground, does not look in the least commercial. We get the same impression as we walk along the tree-clad 3 banks of the little Torrens River, or cross it by the City Bridge. We miss the wharves and warehouses 4 and steam cranes, and might almost imagine that we were on a backwater of the Upper Thames. The main 5 streets, too, of the city remind us rather of the West End than of the City of London; while even the post-office 6 stands in an open space with trees. In fact, the whole city, with its wide streets, its parks and gardens, 7 gives the impression of spaciousness. If we make our way, however, to the railway station we shall see that Adelaide is not by any means without trade. Here are collected the products of all the country round; but as this is purely agricultural, and Adelaide is not the only outlet, there is not the rush of business which we saw at Melbourne.

Here is a general view which will give us some idea 8 of the position of the city. It lies on a plain; a few miles away to the east the view is shut in by a long, low ridge. If we climb this ridge and look back towards the city, we have in sight a large part of the original South Australia.

South Australia of to-day is a somewhat difficult 9 country to analyse; but the ridge on which we are standing may give us the key to the whole. If we follow the heights northwards, we shall find that they disappear, hundreds of miles away, in the country south-east of Lake Eyre. South of Adelaide they curve round and end in Kangaroo Island, which stretches across the mouth of the Gulf of St. Vincent. These heights are really the edge of a plateau, and the plateau slopes gently away from the sea towards the basin of the Murray. The Murray, at the great bend, turns sharply southwards and reaches its outlet in Lake Alexandrina just beyond the southern end of the highlands.

Between the plateau edge and the sea, Adelaide and the Gulf towns lie along a narrow strip of lowland. The Gulf of St. Vincent is merely part of a larger gulf which is interrupted by Yorke Peninsula, so that we have really one great inlet running up to Port Augusta at the head of Spencer Gulf. The west side of this gulf is formed by another plateau which slopes away from the sea towards the salt lakes and marshes of the interior. We thus have two plateaus and a lowland in between, partly flooded by the sea. A portion of the surface has dropped down between two lines of cracks or faults, and a rift valley has been formed. Lake Torrens occupies the northern end of this valley. It is the eastern side of the valley, together with a small part of the back of the plateau, which constitutes the real South Australia. We may notice that the local railways are almost confined to this area.

There is, however, one important piece of the State outside this area. South of Lake Alexandrina we see a long curving coast, bounded by sandbanks enclosing a string of lagoons, the Coorong; behind it is the scrub country which we have met already in the north-west district of Victoria. Beyond this, in the south-east corner, especially around Mount Gambier, we find the same conditions as on the neighbouring coast regions of Victoria. There is considerable rainfall and there are 10 even fresh-water lakes, as we see here. The soil, too, is fertile, since Mount Gambier belongs to the volcanic area of Victoria; so that there is agriculture and dairy farming, and oats are grown. But the district is cut off from Adelaide by land and has rather a detached existence, though the railways now being built or planned will alter this.

We will now explore the country round Adelaide. In the Mount Lofty ranges, east of the city, there are 11 streams and waterfalls; but the rivers of the plain are very small and do not suggest a very heavy rainfall. Everywhere are orchards and vineyards growing fruits which are not grown in the open air in England. Here 12 is an orchard quite near the city, and here is an orange tree laden with ripening fruit. The rainfall is very 13 light and comes mostly in the winter, while the summers are hotter than in most of the occupied regions of Australia. We have the sunny climate of the Mediterranean and a corresponding vegetation. Yet it is healthy for white people, in spite of the heat, owing to the dry clear air; while the highlands only a few miles away offer a refuge in the summer.

On the eastward side of the plateau there are again no large rivers, and the rainfall is even less than at Adelaide; but there is enough to grow fine crops of wheat. We see much the same arrangement of zones as at the back of Sydney, but the wheat-belt is narrower and the rainfall rather less. Very soon we drop down into the rainless plains of the Murray basin, where the only cultivation is in the irrigated district round Renmark. Here we can see them drying the raisins 14 and loading them on to the little steamer which will take them down to near the mouth of the river. They 15 will then be sent on by rail to Adelaide, since the river has no good outlet to the sea.

Yorke Peninsula and the western side of Spencer Gulf have a few small towns on the coast; inland they have no rivers but only dry pastures, salt lakes, and marshes. Here is one of these lakes in the Peninsula. 16 The character of this district will change in the future, as much of it is adapted for the growing of wheat which has already been introduced. The only considerable population at present is on the coast strip from Adelaide to Port Augusta, and on the back of the plateau, never more than a hundred miles from the coast.

As we follow the railway northwards from Adelaide 17 we shall find that agriculture decreases with the decreasing rainfall; in place of crops we see cattle and sheep. Here is a typical station only a hundred miles 18 north of Adelaide, where the sheep seem to be in full possession. The further north we go the thinner is the settlement; and north of Port Augusta we shall only find it at a few favoured spots near the railway.

Beyond Lake Torrens the plateau edge to the east trends away and disappears, and we enter the Lake Eyre basin. At one time this may have been a vast inland sea, as the remains of extinct animals show that the climate must have been very different from the present. Now it is a great clay plain, broken by low plateaus and ridges of sandstone, and with much of its surface covered with stones or mulga scrub. The lakes are salt, while the long rivers, shown on the map as flowing into them, may be only a string of mudholes for years together. Much of this region is still unexplored, and nearly the whole of it is useless.

The railway ends at Oodnadatta, to which a train runs at rare intervals; and off the railway the camel, which 19 has been introduced into Australia for this purpose, is the only means of transport. To the east of this line something may be made of the country by boring through the clay to reach the artesian water, as we have seen already in Queensland and New South Wales; so that settlement may spread slowly towards these States. To the west is the arid plateau which covers so much of the central part of the continent—the Sahara of Australia.

Adelaide is a little south of Sydney in latitude, and 20 Oodnadatta a little south of Brisbane, yet what a difference between the two parallel journeys by rail! The explanation is to be found in the rainfall figures: north of Port Augusta we enter the zone where the annual amount is under ten inches. The railway reminds us of those starting from the east coast and ending at some remote point in the interior; but there seems very little country here for our line to exploit or develop. To understand fully its meaning we must look back at the past history of the region.

South Australia was founded by an Association formed in England with the object of building up a model agricultural colony. The plan was to sell the unoccupied land and use the proceeds to aid suitable emigrants in settling there. With this idea Adelaide was founded in 1836. For a few years the colony was poor, as it was intended to be self-supporting and the capital in private hands was insufficient to develop the country. But progress was helped by the various discoveries of copper, from 1842 onwards, at Kapunda, Burra and other places; and by 1855 the colony was able to export large quantities of agricultural produce to the other colonies, which had depended mainly on Tasmania up to this time.

It is curious that the State which is still mainly agricultural was the first to develop its minerals on a large scale; but as the mineral was copper and not gold, it led to no rush of settlers, but only to a steady growth of population. The older mines have been long worked out, but those in Yorke Peninsula and in the 21 Flinders Range still produce large quantities. Here are views of the Wallaroo and Moonta mines in the Peninsula. 22

With the exception of some iron ore, which is not much worked, South Australia has no other important minerals of its own: yet at Port Pirie, on the east side of Spencer Gulf, we find large smelting works. To explain this we must look back again at the railway map. From the port a line runs north-east for two hundred miles or more, to the Silverton country, just inside the New South Wales border which we have already visited. It is the natural outlet for this district, as Sydney is more than twice as far away.

Here we see Port Pirie and some of the smelting 23 works. The works also handle iron ore which is brought down to the opposite shore of the Gulf by a short railway 24 from Iron Knob, near Lake Gilles, in the dry interior of the western plateau. In the case of this district we notice once again that the artificial boundary following a line of longitude has no correspondence with the natural features of the country.

We have already seen how, on the constitution of Queensland as a separate State in 1859, the country 25 to the west was left as a detached portion of New South Wales. In 1855, Gregory had crossed what is now the Northern Territory, from the Victoria River in the west to the Flinders River, and so through North Queensland to Brisbane, following the line taken earlier by the explorer Leichhardt, but further inland. At the same time, various explorers had been following up Eyre’s discoveries in South Australia, and miners and shepherds were pushing steadily northwards from Yorke Peninsula along the line of the present railway. In 1859, South Australia offered a prize for the first explorer to cross the continent from south to north, urged on by the proposal to connect Australia with England by a cable which must be landed somewhere on the north coast. A party from Victoria, under Burke, started first, and following roughly the western boundaries of New South Wales and Queensland, came out by way of the Flinders River to the Gulf of Carpentaria. But on their return Burke and Wills perished at Cooper’s Creek of starvation, and only one member of the party was rescued.

In 1862, Stuart, for South Australia, succeeded in crossing to the north coast and returning to Adelaide by the route west of Lake Eyre which is now followed by the railway and telegraph. The immediate result was that the Northern Territory became politically part of South Australia, instead of being an annex to New South Wales; but it has recently been transferred to the Commonwealth Government by which it is now administered. By 1872, the telegraph line was completed to Palmerston, the northern capital, on Port Darwin, where the cable is landed. By 1889, the railway from the south had been pushed forward to Oodnadatta, nearly seven hundred miles from Adelaide; while in the north one hundred and fifty miles of line was built southwards. Some day, probably in the near future, the rail will stretch from shore to shore, but there still remains a gap of over a thousand miles.

North of Lake Eyre, and on the Tropic, the Territory is crossed by the Macdonell Ranges, running east and west. Then comes a stretch of five hundred miles of sandy plains, with scrub and spinifex, and then the peninsula of Arnhem Land, a low plateau with a considerable rainfall. Right on the coast are mangrove swamps and tropical rainfall, as in North Queensland. Though some of this country is suited to cattle, and gold has also been discovered, progress has not been very rapid, in spite of the importance of the magnificent harbour of Port Darwin. The population consists of a few hundred Europeans, as many Asiatics, mainly Chinese, and some thousands of aborigines.

After Stuart’s journey there remained only to complete the conquest of the desert from east to west. In 1840, Eyre had succeeded in travelling from Adelaide to West Australia along the shores of the Great Australian Bight. It was 1870 before Sir John Forrest traversed the same route in the opposite direction. The result was the occupation of Eucla, in the middle of the Bight, and the completion of the overland wire from Adelaide to Albany in 1877. Finally, in 1874, Forrest crossed the middle of the great plateau, from Geraldton to the north-south telegraph line. A few daring journeys and the two telegraph lines still represent the only land links between the detached areas of settlement which fringe the central plateau block; but a stronger link will soon be forged. Already the work is in hand. A survey of the route was completed in 1909 by the Federal Government; and at the end of 1911 a Bill was passed for the construction of a railway from Port Augusta to Kalgoorlie, a distance of over 1000 miles. This line will not only shorten the mail route to the eastern States, but may also lead to some pastoral settlement, as not all the country traversed is desert.

South and Western Australia, with the Northern Territory, together include nearly two-thirds of the continent. Western Australia alone includes nearly a third. It is rather more than five times the size of Spain, but its population is smaller than that of any of the States of the mainland. The reason for this contrast is partly a matter of history, as the State is comparatively young, and partly due to geographical causes, as we shall see when we have examined the country.

The map shows Western Australia stretching from 26 north to south, across the whole breadth of the continent, with the Tropic running through the middle. It corresponds in position to Queensland and New South Wales; for Cape Londonderry is in the same latitude as the middle of Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, while Albany is a little south of Sydney. The greater part of the State is occupied by a broad plateau, from a thousand to fifteen hundred feet high; between this and the sea is a narrow coastal plain, irregular and deeply indented in the north, narrower and more uniform towards the south, and disappearing in the south-west corner where the plateau edge approaches the sea. We may notice a certain likeness here to the structure of the eastern end of the continent. We shall find nearly the whole of the agricultural population collected along a comparatively narrow belt of country from Geraldton to Albany, with Perth, the capital, in the middle. On the plateau there are no great rivers, but many short streams run down from its western edge to the sea; and though the map shows large lakes in the interior we shall find that in this case the map is not entirely to be trusted.

The Swan River was discovered by Captain Stirling on his exploring mission from Sydney in 1827. Two years later Captain Fremantle took formal possession, and the Swan River Settlement was founded. The Home Government was at first doubtful about the project, but was urged on to the settlement through fear of French occupation. Perth itself lies twelve 27 miles up the river; its port is Fremantle, at the mouth of the river, on a deep and safe harbour, crowded with 28 wharves and shipping. It is the main outlet for the trade of all this part of Western Australia.

Instead of taking the train we will travel by launch up the Swan River; on our way we notice the large 29 flocks of black swans which are now collected here and preserved by the Government. The city of Perth is smaller and more irregular than Adelaide or Melbourne, and we see it at its best as we approach by the river. It lies rather in a hollow, and from the higher land in 30 the King’s Park we get a fine view along the river front. The main streets differ little from those of other Australian cities; but in St. George’s Terrace 31 they are working on the road, and we notice that the old tree stumps are not yet removed. Although Perth is making very rapid progress, everything is as yet somewhat quieter, more picturesque and on a smaller scale than in the great capitals of the eastern States. On the outskirts of the city, especially overlooking the river, are the gardens and houses of the wealthier residents. Here is one of these; notice the 32 lemon trees laden with fruit, although it is winter. In the country round we shall feel quite at home. Here we have a picture with pasture and scattered trees and fat cattle; and we pass a poultry farm which might 33 well be in a corner of Surrey.

Let us follow the Swan, now become the Avon River, inland. First we come to Newcastle, where there are many orange orchards in the broad valley; then we pass the township of Northam, where we meet a native woman 34 on the road, and finally we reach York. From one of the surrounding hills we look down on a broad expanse of 35 plain, dotted with farmhouses, and with a background of hills in the distance. There is a flour mill which 36 might be in our own Yorkshire, and a very English-looking church on the sloping bank above the river. 37 All looks settled and civilised. On the other hand, the King’s Head hotel is entirely primitive, and carries 38 us back to the days of the early settlers, as it is one of the oldest buildings in the State. As we cross the bridge we notice that the trees are standing in the water, for the river is in flood.

We have here a country full of English place-names, and with scenery which often reminds us of England; but at the same time we find wheat and oranges growing side by side, and trees in fruit and flower in the winter. This suggests something very different from our own climate. We must remember that Perth is in latitude 32° S. and that this district therefore corresponds to Egypt or Morocco. It is a land where frosts are unknown in the lowlands and valleys near the sea, and where the summers are hot and dry, though tempered by the sea breezes. Most of the rain falls in the winter, which is therefore the growing time; we have already noticed the Avon in flood. Even in the winter there is plenty of sun, as the rain falls largely in heavy showers at night.

If we travel eastward from York we shall soon find 39 a change in the face of the country, as the rainfall decreases quickly towards the interior. But for the present we will keep within the zone of moderate rainfall, not far from the coast, and continue our journey southwards. Much of the land round Perth has been cleared for agriculture, though it was formerly covered with forest. Beginning north of Perth, and stretching southwards at a distance of twenty to thirty miles from the coast, is a long belt of timber-country, marking the zone of heaviest rainfall. This belt broadens out and fills the whole peninsula in the south-west corner, between Flinders Bay and Geographe Bay, and finally disappears a few miles to the north-east of Albany. The dense forest clothes the western face of the plateau, and thins out eastward to open scrub country with scattered gum trees of various kinds. It consists in the main of Jarrah, with some blocks of Karri in the south and south-west.

Jarrah is a very hard red-coloured wood which is useful for jetties, railway sleepers and all other work where there is great exposure to damp and weather. We may often walk over it in the streets of our cities, as it makes an excellent pavement. Here we see the appearance of the original tree: it is tall, perhaps a 40 hundred feet high, with a trunk a yard or more thick and a dark-grey furrowed bark.

With the Jarrah is found the Karri, of much the same character but less durable. It is one of the finest and tallest trees of the Australian forest. Its bark is yellowish white, and peels off, leaving the tree clean, so that the Karri is sometimes called the white gum. The tree sometimes grows to a height of three hundred 41 feet, and is far too large to handle; while even the smaller specimens need a whole team to haul a single log. So that, although there is a very large area of forest land, we can understand that cutting only goes on within easy reach of one of the short branch railway lines running down to the sea. The forests of Western Australia have recently been estimated to contain two hundred and twenty million tons of valuable timber, worth about three hundred million pounds sterling.

Where the forest thins out eastward the red gum is one of the most useful trees, as it is spreading and 42 branched, and so gives more shade than the other gum trees. This is important for the stockowner in a dry, hot country.

We have already seen something of the agricultural district round York; and we shall find little difference as we follow the railway southwards to Albany, keeping always about a hundred miles from the coast. There are the same wheatfields and sheep and occasional orchards; it is not very different from the country round Perth, except that it is rather cooler as we travel southwards. In the summer, especially on the eastern edge of this belt, it is very dry and parched; but after the winter rains, though there is too little water for trees, the flowers and grasses spring up everywhere, especially everlasting flowers which grow in great profusion, as we see from the picture before us. 43

So we have a coast belt associated with timber, and a parallel belt inland where agriculture is developing along the track of the railway. The southern terminus 44 of the railway is Albany, on King George’s Sound, one of the best harbours of the Australian continent. 45 Albany is a fortified coaling port, and is likely to grow in importance with the organisation of Australian defence in the future. This seems a small corner on the map, yet the area available for agriculture is considerably larger than the total area under cultivation in Great Britain; while beyond it, in the region of lessening rainfall, is a wide belt suited for sheep-raising. Further eastward still, beyond this belt, we enter another type of country. The railway from Northam Junction carries us across the dry country and through Southern Cross to the mining centre of Coolgardie. A little further on, at Kalgoorlie, it turns northward, to end at Laverton, about four hundred miles from Perth and the same distance from the sea to the south. This is the limit of that part of West Australian settlement which is based on gold.

The gold-bearing country is in two bands, running north and south, through Southern Cross and Kalgoorlie; and we find quite a large population in the midst of waterless country. Here is a view of Kalgoorlie, a prosperous-looking town, in spite of its arid 46 surroundings. This is the region of Australia where gold-mining has developed most rapidly in recent years. It is very different from Ballarat or the Queensland mines, where the gold lies in the midst of a fertile agricultural country, easily reached from the sea.

After leaving the agricultural belt we pass through a stony country with low hills covered with deadwood and scrub. Yet the map shows us many lakes and pools, and as it is winter we shall find them according to our expectations. Here is a pool of fresh water 47 just after the rains; notice that it even has trees growing round it. Here again is one of the larger 48 lakes; though there seems to be plenty of water here it is really only a flat clay marsh, flooded to the depth of a few inches. Notice the gold mine in the distance. In the hot weather the water in these shallow lakes soon evaporates, often leaving a deposit of salt, so that in place of a sheet of water there is a dreary clay flat covered with stones. On these flats near the shrunken 49 lakes the only vegetation is the salt-bush, with occasional patches of very dry scrub.

There is nothing to attract the settler to country such as this, except gold. There is little water, and that mostly salt or brackish, so that in the early days of the mines it was distilled and sold by the gallon at a high price. There was none available for washing the gold, so that it had to be separated from the earth and rock by the method known as dry-blowing. Now all this has been changed. The mines are supplied with water from far away in the Perth district, where the rainfall is heavy. The whole river is held up at Mundaring, twenty-one miles from Perth, by a 50 gigantic weir, and the water is raised at one pumping station after another, and so carried up and over the plateau to the mining districts. The pipes are laid along the railway and the water is carried for about three hundred and fifty miles, or rather further than from London to Berwick. Without this great work, the Coolgardie region, with its large mining population, could not exist.

Let us now examine the mining. Here we see its primitive methods in the bush. There is probably 51 alluvial gold in the bed of a stream, buried under the surface sand and clay. The stuff is merely hauled up 52 in buckets and thrown out on to the “dump” to await further treatment. Here again, instead of sinking a 53 shaft, the miners have burrowed into the bare hillside. In some places, where water is to be had for a short time after the rains, the miners contrive a primitive 54 washing machine such as we see here. The large trough is merely a hollow log, where the gold-bearing dirt is washed to free it from clay, while the larger stones are picked out. Then it is put into the long trough and sluiced, so that the gold settles among the small stones while the lighter stuff is carried away. The troughs are of wood and the pump is distinctly home made; the water is used again and again until it becomes too thick or evaporates altogether.

Now let us turn to another picture. Here is an up-to-date mine, with machinery and tanks for the 55 chemical extraction of the last atom of gold, after the mass has already been treated in great batteries. 56 There is a deep shaft here with mechanical winding as in a coal mine; but often the gold-bearing quartz is near the surface, and we have an “open cut,” or 57 practically a quarry. Here is one showing the rock at close quarters: the white is the rock which contains 58 the gold, while the dark is the “mullock,” or “country” rock, as the miners style it. There are other goldfields nearer the coast, in the district north-east of Perth. Although near the sea this is a very dry country with much mulga scrub; for, as we go northwards, the scanty rainfall is more and more limited to a very narrow strip along the coast. We have noticed already that the forest zone ends not far north of Perth.

The rest of the interior in this part of the State is a stony desert whose chief product is the spinifex, or porcupine grass, which we have seen before. This often forms an impenetrable scrub, as many explorers have found to their cost. Over very large areas the surface is covered with great boulders; these may be troublesome to the traveller, but they are not without their uses. The storm water runs off them and does not contain salt, so that it can be caught in a tank for 59 the cattle on the stock routes, as we see in this picture.

In the south-east, towards the great Australian Bight, there is a change. There is much limestone country here, with pasture, but the water sinks away through the porous rock. Access, too, is difficult, owing to the cliff barrier stretching for fifteen hundred miles unbroken by any stream or gap. Here is a view 60 of these cliffs; sometimes they come down to the sea, sometimes they lie some distance inland, but they are always present. Here, too, we find the water, which sank into the plateau above, breaking out at the foot 61 of the cliffs and giving us unexpected vegetation.

One part of West Australia we have not visited, that beyond the Tropic to the north. Here is a moderate rainfall similar to that in the Northern Territory and in Queensland; while in the extreme north we meet the heavy downpour of the Tropics. Much of it is well suited for cattle, but at present it is hardly touched, and it is separated from the populous district of the south by a wide stretch of dry and inhospitable country.