Australia

a continent situated south-east of Asia between the Indian and the Pacific Oceans. The name is derived from the Latin australis, meaning southern. The continent may be compared in shape to a geranium leaf, with the Great Australian Bight occupying the southern shore or base of the leaf, and the Gulf of Carpentaria extending into the northern shore or tip for a distance of 1,000 miles. The greatest east and west line of Australia is 2,360 miles; the greatest north and south line is 2,050 miles. If the map of Australia were placed on that of North America, the extremities of these lines would fall in the vicinity of New York and San Francisco, and Galveston and Winnipeg respectively. The entire area is 2,972,573 square miles, only slightly less than that of the United States. The coast is regular with few indentations. Its entire extent is 8,000 miles. A coral reef, known as the Great Barrier reef, follows the northeastern coast for about 1,000 miles. It is separated from the continent by a channel from ten to thirty miles wide. Darwin considered that the coast has subsided gradually, and that the coral insects have simply kept their fringe of reef built up to the level of the surface, but this theory has been abandoned.

TOPOGRAPHY. A fringe of broken plateaus and low mountain ranges curves around three sides of the continent not unlike a wide horseshoe, with the two ends at the eastern and western extremities of the Bight. The immediate coast varies from low plains to abrupt cliffs. The highest mountains are in the southeast. Three peaks rise to an altitude of over 7,000 feet, slightly exceeding the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The region represented by the horseshoe is for the most part well watered, and a tract immediately within, shaped like the crescent of a new moon, is fairly fortunate in this respect; but a large interior region corresponding to the frog of the horse's foot, and occupying from one-third to one-half of the continent, is subject to drouth. This dry region reaches the southern shore, where, for 1,000 miles of seacoast, not even a rivulet empties its waters into the Great Bight. This vast interior region is broken up by ridges into various basins, the lowest parts of which are occupied by saline mud lakes, baked and arid, cracked at times, and flooded with water at others. The annual rainfall varies from fifty inches or more on some parts of the coast to almost none at all in some parts of the interior. The variation in plant and animal life is no less marked.

PLANTS. Geologically, Australia is an old continent. The rocks are old. In the opinion of scientists, the forms of plants and animals are old. The continent has been shut off by itself for ages. For some reason, its animals and plants have not developed. The trees are peculiar, nearly all hold their leaves the year around. There are 300 kinds of acacia trees. Peculiar sorts of oak, gum tree, cedar, and pine are found. The baobab and the eucalyptus are characteristic. One or two species of the latter rival the gigantic sequoias of California in size. One felled near Melbourne measured six feet in diameter at a distance of 300 feet from the ground. It is stated that certain native lilies, tulips, and honeysuckles grow to be trees. Portions of the coast, particularly on the north, are clothed with tropical jungles, and a part of the interior is occupied by bush through which the traveler is obliged to chop his way. The bush contains so many gum-bearing trees that it is said to be delightfully fragrant, even more so than our pine forests. A mere list of the interesting plants found in so vast and varied a region would be wearisome. There are over 10,000 flowering species, including figs, mallows, night-shades, spurges, milkweeds, grapevines, madders, mints, orchids, mistletoes, palms, and sedges. The lotus and water lilies,--red, purple, blue, and white,--adorn the rivers and bayous. The variation in vegetation found along a line extending from Florida to Arizona is not greater than may be seen in following a similar line drawn from a coast jungle over a coast range and across a grassy plain into a desert region of interior Australia.

ANIMALS. The native animals are even more peculiar than the plants. There are four species of large, fruit-eating bats, called flying foxes, twenty insect-eating bats, a score or so of land-rats, and half a dozen water-rats. All these, with the numerous fishes, seals, a horde of insects, and several game birds, such as the quail, plover, duck, goose, and pigeon, are not particularly different from the animals of other regions. In addition to these, however, there are the duckbill and the spiny anteater that produce their young from eggs housed in a burrow, and 110 species of pouched animals utterly unknown elsewhere, if we except one American animal, the opossum. Of these peculiar Australian animals, the females are provided with a fold of skin or pouch within which the young may nestle and nurse in safety. These pouched animals are divided into five classes according to their food, as root-eaters, grass-eaters. They vary greatly in size from the giant kangaroo that weighs over 200 pounds to the active little flying fruit-eater, smaller than a mouse.

There are several hundred Australian birds, including many peculiar species, such as the emu, related to the ostrich; the lyre bird, with its tail feathers spread in the shape of a lyre; the black swan contradictory of the adage; the brush turkeys; the mound-birds; and the bower birds. Turtles, a crocodile thirty feet long, numerous lizards up to eight feet in length, forty frogs, one with blue legs and a golden back, and many large, harmless pythons may be found, especially in north Australia; for being south of the equator, the tropical plants and animals are to be sought on the northern shore.

The ordinary domestic animals have been introduced, as well as the sparrow and the rabbit. The latter has proved to be a pest in the southeast. New South Wales has built 17,000 miles of rabbit proof fence in an endeavor to exclude the pest from farming districts. Camels have been introduced for use as pack animals in the interior.

NATIVE POPULATION. The native Australians are considered a branch of the black race, but they differ from those of Africa. Their complexion is not so black; the hair is described as shaggy or curly, not wooly; the nose is more like that of a European; the lips are thick, but do not turn outward; the legs and arms are as deficient in muscle, but the heel is shorter. They have no cattle or fields. They have no houses other than huts that may be built in an hour. The families wander from place to place and, save as employed by whites, live by hunting and fishing. They are proficient in the taking of game with the boomerang, and in throwing the javelin. This they sometimes launch by laying it on a piece of board, and flinging it with the motion employed in casting a potato from the end of a rod. They are a degraded lot and are diminishing in number. Perhaps 60,000 are left.

EARLY HISTORY. Australia was a mythical country not unlike Atlantis 200 B. C. It was not until Captain Cook made his famous voyage of exploration in 1770, and took possession in the name of Great Britain, that much was known of the region among English speaking people. In 1788 the British government inaugurated the policy of planting colonies of people convicted of crime. About 70,000 convicts were deported to Australia and nearly as many more to Tasmania. The practice did not cease until 1868. In the meantime the convicts were followed by their families and friends, others were attracted by the fertility and opportunities of the country and immigration set in. About the year 1813 pioneers discovered passes leading through the Blue Mountains to the grassy uplands, and began to engage in sheep and cattle raising.

MINERALS. A discovery of gold in 1851 created excitement and was followed by an influx of goldseekers to be compared with the stirring days of California. The "Welcome" nugget found at Ballarat weighed 2,217 ounces, and was sold for $52,500. Gold was found in many parts of the continent. Over $2,000,000,000 worth has been mined since the discovery, and gold mining still yields a large return. Gold production was reported officially at $77,500,000 for 1907. Copper, silver, tin and coal mines add to the mineral wealth of the country.

CLIMATE. The Australian summer is excessively hot, as it comes at the time when the earth is nearest the sun. The North American summer, on the contrary, comes when the earth is farthest away from the sun. The difference is noticeable. Being in the southern hemisphere, the Australian spring comes at the time of our fall and their fall comes at the time of our spring.

PRODUCTS. The agricultural possibilities of Australia are very great. A large part of the interior has proved adapted to sheep raising. Three hundred million pounds of wool are sent to Great Britain annually. Hides, horns, bone-dust, frozen, preserved, and salted meats, and tallow are produced in large quantities for export. The forests yield fine sandalwood, cedar, pine, and hard woods valuable for cabinet work and for building. The pearlshell, dugong, oyster, and turtle fisheries employ a large number of people and yield a handsome income. The agricultural products are as varied as they are in the United States. Sugar, rum, Indian corn, wheat, rice, sorghum, guinea-grass, grapes, arrowroot, bananas, sweet potatoes, tobacco, apples, peaches, plums, almonds, olives, coffee, cotton, pineapples, potatoes, and hops are the more important.

One of the difficulties in understanding so vast a territory lies in its very extent and variety of climate. Two plants, animals, or productions named above in succession, may, as a matter of fact, belong to districts a thousand miles apart. As late as 1860 the government offered a bonus of $50,000 to any one who would force his way from the south coast to the north coast and return again with authentic information about the interior.