The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1878-09-19
AUSTRALIA.
Interesting Facts About the Worlds Grcat'
est Island.

Of the entire area of Australia, which
is very little less than that of the whole
OF Europe, about one-fifth, or half o
million square miles, in the middle, is q
barren wilderness, which can only be
explored at the cost of frightful hard
ships and at the risk of life itself. In
the southern portion of this desert there
are dotted, here and there, hills of soft,
white, yielding sand, thickly clad with
spinifex, scrub oak and other low shrubs,
with an occasional group of eucalyptus
trees but in its northern part not even
this mean vegetation appears, and the
sandhills are bare. The fierce rays of
the sun in summer often set the parched
foliage of the wilderness in blaze, and
devastating fires prevail, which give rise
to hot winds that render oppressive the
outlying settlements.
Australia has none of the great noun
tain chains and mighty rivers to which
we are accustomed on this continent.
Its highest range of hills is the Warra-
gong, or Blue mountains, which attain
height of 1000 feet above the sea level.
There are no great inlets except the
Gulf OF Carpentaria, on the north coast,
but the harbors of Sydney and Port
Darwin are as useful and grand as any
in the world, not emitting Rio Janeiro,
Oonstantinople, Hong Kong or san
Francisco. The enormous expanse of
country is. almost entirely level, giving
indications that it was once the bed of
the ocean. There are many salt marshes
and lagoons in the center and west, and
in the east few rivers which alternately
expose their dried beds to the baking
rays of the sun and overflow their banks.
The largest navigable river in east Aus
tralia is the Murray. Long and severe
droughts sometimes prevail In 1866
there was no rainfall in central or south
Australia, and cattle and sheep died by
thousands daily.
From a paper read before the Geo.
graphical society of New York, by Mr..
jess Young, who was the astronomer of
the Giles expedition, sent out in 1874 to
explore the interior of the island conti-
nent, we get many interesting facts re-
garding Australia, which are here given
without much regard to connection.
so dry is the soil and climate in the
interior, so little variation is there, that
MIR. Young often left delicate instru-
ments uncovered in the open air over
night, and never found on them the
slightest particle of rust from dew or
other moisture. Great eucalyptus trees
are one of the features of the more
favored parts OF Australia. Some of
them are OF enormous growth, $50 to
4OO feet high, and one specimen in the
Warragong range, which is lying on the
ground, measures 420 feet IN height, or
rather length. A popularity about the
trees is that they begin to die at the top
and die downward, and that they usually
shoot the bark instead of the leaves.
There is an absence of edible fruits.
except few berries and some small in.
digenous peaches. The scrub, of which
we have spoken, is generally species of
eucalyptus, and it covers fully one-fifth
of the whole colony. The monotony of
travelling through it can only be under
stood by experience. "For days and
weeks and months you may be in it
without seeing twenty yards in any
direction. 1t is i'll this scrub that SO
many lives have been lost from time to
time" The kangaroo affords sport and
food for the natives and for the hunts
man among the colonists, and the tail of
the animal, as is well known, makes an
excellent soup. The Australian bear
has scarcely energy enough to move.
Insects are wonderfully prolific, mos
quitoes and flies being particularly
abundant. "The native children are
sometimes hardly recognizable, so COM
pletely are they covered with flies, filling
their eyes, noses and mouths" Spiders
are very common, as also are ants, the
tarantula being the most formidable of
the former and the bulldog ant the
worst species of the latter. These ants
are an inch or more in height and about
two inches long. They all fight fiercely,
and their sting is not to be desired. The
fish are whales, seals, sharks, Goldfish,
snappers, mullet, and hosts of others
not found in any other part of the
world. There are no Illuminating ami
mails, no pachydermata, and no carni-
vora, except the native dog or dingo.
Australia, however, is distinguished by
the great majority of marsuphial or
pouched animals, of which there are
now few traces in any other part of the
world. The birds of Australia are the
emu, resembling an ostrich, and the
more common varieties.
OF the natives of Australia, who are
rapidly approaching extinction, Mr..
Young gives far more favorable report
than those we are accustomed to get. As
the result of his observations, he de.
clares that "the Australian black is not
naturally SO derraved as many other
races better cared for and better known"
He has never found any traces of can
nibal habits among them, and none of
torture Or of scalping. "Any native
whom l asked has secuted the idea with
disgust, and 1 have seen their graves
and heard them bury their dead. )" They
are treacherous, as are all uncivilized
races, but they are not bloodthirsty.
They have little or no religion, though
they believe the spirit is immortal.
They also fancy that the dead will some
times return in another shape, hence
they carry dead body round and round
the grave at some distance, in order to
puzzle the deceased as to his where
abouts. They are also in abject terror
of an evil spirit, called Chinchi. There
seems to be no government among them,
but when anything is in dispute it is re-
ferred to one or two of the Oldest men
for arbitration. The celebrated boom.
erang, so we'll known as one of their
favorite weapons, is curved piece of
thin wood, which, by means of COM
bination of forces, can be thrown with
great dexterity, making the most curious
evolutions, and puzzling any one stand
ing near as to where it is going to stop.
1t is unsafe to seek shelter behind a
tree, for one may be taken in the rear
or on the flank.
The continent of Australia. as Mr.