and traced, that of the interior was far more difficult.
Starting from Cape York, in the extreme north, and following down the eastern coast, the edge of the tableland is formed of ranges, often of considerable height, the gullies and spurs of which are mostly clothed with scrub and jungle of tropical growth and luxuriance; amongst the peaks of this range there are Distant Peak, 3,573 feet; Pieter Botte Mountain, 3,311 feet; Grey Peak, 3,357 feet; and the Bellender Kerr Hills, 5,433 feet high. Further south, the level is more uniform; the isolated peak of Mount Elliott—which attains a height Of 4,075 feet—forming the exception, until further south again the elevations approach to 4,250 feet. An average height of a little over two thousand feet is then maintained until the border line of Queensland is reached, and here—in Mount Lindesay—5,500 feet is met with. The New England Range maintains this altitude in many peaks, including Mount Seaview—from which point Oxley sighted the ocean-6,000 feet high. Still to the south, the mountains on the border of the plateau keep up an average of between three and four thousand feet until, at the south-east extremity of our continent, the greatest height is attained in Mount Kosciusko, falling some 700 feet short of the limit of perpetual snow, its elevation being 7,308 feet.
To the westward, many of the peaks reach altitudes of over 5,000 and 6,000 feet, until the large depression is encountered through which the great body of interior waters find their way to the sea by means of the Murray Channel.
West of this gap, the edge of the tableland is broken, and depressed, the highest crests of the coastal range rarely reaching to 3,000 feet in height, and along the shore line, facing the Great Australian Bight, it is almost non-existent.
On reaching the south-west corner of Australia, the elevated edge reforms in the Russell and Darling Ranges, and trending northward, skirting the coast, culminates in Mount Bruce, 4,000 feet above sea level. From hence, the range following the sea line is broken, rugged and precipitous, but of inconsiderable height, and when the centre of the Gulf of Carpentaria is reached, it falls away into highlands and slopes, joining the eastern ranges.
On the great plateau encircled by this range, no elevations of any moment are to be found; a kind of chain traverses the centre from north to south, but though in places presenting a bold formation, the highest altitude attained is in the Macdonnell Ranges—4,000 feet.
From the coastal range, the edge of the tableland, flow the rivers that run direct to the sea on the seaward face; but in many instances a false tableland occurs, the streams that drain which unite in forcing their way through deep gorges to the lowlands of the coast. This false tableland is conspicuous in the valley of the Upper Burdekin River on the east coast, and on the head waters of the Fitzroy, The country drained by the top tributaries of these rivers being only divided from the real tableland by a gentle ascent, whereas the descent to the coast is steep and abrupt. Most of the northern rivers, too, take their rise in a plateau that is almost on a level with the great plain, but cut their way down to the sea through gorges, instead of being lost in the interior.
It follows then, that the drainage and character of the terrace surrounding the continent, keeping to natural and known laws was at once understood, but the drainage of the plateau was more difficult to comprehend, and it is now known to be confined to two river systems only, first, that of the Darling and Murray, which rivers receive all the waters flowing to the westward of the eastern coast range, and secondly, the lake system further to the westward; the great salt lakes to the north of Spencer's Gulf receiving Cooper's Creek and its many tributaries, and also the Diamantina and Herbert; their waters being dissipated by soakage and evaporation. Westward, again, there is little doubt that no system exists, the level nature of the country and intermittent rainfall shortening the existence of the creeks before they have time to unite their flood waters in one large permanent channel.
The rivers of the eastern coast are the Kennedy, the Endeavour, the Barron, the Burdekin with its many tributaries, the Clark, the Perry, the Star, the Keelbottom, the Fanning, the Suttor (which last brings down the united waters of the Cape and Belyando), and finally after passing through the Leichhardt Range the Bowen, and the Bogie. The Fitzroy, another river of many tributaries, the Mackenzie, the Isaacs, the Nogoa, and the Dawson. Then come the Boyne, the Kolan, the Burnett (which receives another Boyne), the Mary, the Brisbane, all in the Colony of Queensland. On this coast in New South Wales, come next the Tweed, the Richmond, and the Clarence; the Macleay, the Hastings, and the Hunter. The Hawkesbury the Shoalhaven and the Clyde. The Snowy River, though rising in New South Wales, discharges itself into the sea in Victorian waters; thence we come to the Latrobe and the many minor streams that flow into the ocean instead of into the great receiver the Murray. The Glenelg and the Wannon. Then comes the Murray, the outlet of the inland waters. Westward, the rivers of the coast become smaller and less frequent, until at last they cease to exist; but on the western shore—where the coast range once more reasserts itself—we find in Western Australia, the Swan, the Irwin, the Greenough, the Murchison, and the Gascoyne, the Ashburton, the Fortescue, the De Grey, and another Fitzroy. On the north coast, we meet with the Victoria, the Daly, the Adelaide, the Alligator, the Liverpool, the Roper, the Limmen Bight, the Macarthur, the Robinson and the Calvert, the Albert—which is the outlet for the Nicholson and the Gregory—the Leichhardt and the Flinders, the Norman, the Gilbert, the Einesleigh, the Mitchell, the Archer, the Jardine, and the Batavia, which brings us back to our starting point at Cape York.
Now come the inland arteries, the streams running through the tableland and feeding the Darling and the Murray. These are the Murrumbidgee, which equals the Murray almost in importance, the Lachlan and the Darling, which brings down the waters of a hundred streams, the Macquarie, the Castlereagh, and the Bogan, the Namoi and Gwydir, the Dumaresque, the Condamine, the Maranoa, the Moonie, and the Warrego. And falling into the Murray itself, from the south are, the Ovens, the Goulburn, the Mitta Mitta, the Campaspe and the Loddon.
The other rivers of' the inland slope are the Barcoo and Thomson, forming Cooper's Creek, the Diamentina, the Burke and the Hamilton, the Herbert or Georgina, and Eyre Creek, all these end in the flats and shallows of the Great Salt Lake District.
The remaining watercourses to the westward cannot be classed in any way, their course is apparently determined by local inequalities of the surface, and although some are very considerable in appearance, their flow is so brief that it is impossible to consider them as at all forming parts of one system; the longest and most important is Sturt's Creek.
The coast country, meaning the land watered by the rivers first enumerated, has the advantage over the tableland in the matter of rainfall, and the rivers therefore possess more of the characteristics of running streams, than the chains of isolated ponds that are known as rivers in the inland slope. The climatic influence is especially noticeable in the indigenous grasses and herbage of the two regions. Mr. George Ranken, in one of his essays on Australian subjects ["The Squatting System of Australia," by "Capricornus."] draws an excellent picture of the reclamation and transformation of the forest primeval.
"The first comers in 1788, found before them, as their ships came to anchor, sandstone bluffs covered with scraggy trees and heath-like plants, with a bright blue sky above, and an elastic, buoyant atmosphere around. As they went inland, they found an endless open forest, the ground being clothed with a light, tufty grass, but it was the starved outline of European woodland scenery, for the trees rose bare and branchless from a thirsty soil, and the grass covered only half, the surface of the earth. Except the grass, and that was thin enough, though it grew everywhere, the country seemed poor in products, and looked as if it were involved in a constant struggle between droughts and floods. They would have judged it to be poor in capability also, if, on further experience, a vitality had not appeared which seemed to electrify the soil on the touch of colonisation. Imported animals, trees, and plants lived and flourished among the dingy forests, which barely yielded food enough for a few wandering savages.
"The farther they went, the greater contrast appeared, more drought and better country; and in later times, as the last of enigmas,
