New Britain herald., 1924-04-15
TASMANIA APPEARS
 AS LITTLE PLACE
But Really Is an Important
 South Sea Island

one of the countries to appear most
 recently in cablegrams as experiencing
 earthquake shocks .is,s sthe subject of
 the following bulletin from the
 Washington, D. C., headquarters of
 the National Geographic society.
 Known affectionately as Little Tassy' and 'Australia's Little Sister, Tasmania, an island just 15o miles south of that continent, is the Rhode
 Island of the Australian Common wealth." says the bulletin. But though it is the smallest of the prov inces that make up Australia's
 Federation, it is of fair size, having more than twenty times the area of our own smallest state. Its e6.000
 square miles give it size slightly greater than West Virginia.
 Adds What Australia Lacks
 There was a tendency among the people of the mainland to consider Tasmania of small account when the political battles for the formation of the Australian Commonwealth were being fought out, and there was Likelihood at times that the island would not be included. The Tas- Nmanians, isolated somewhat beyond 150 mile Bass Strait dubbed the Aus tralians other siders. Tasmania was included, however, and promises to be of great importance to the country of which it is a part. Mainland Australia's farthest projection toward the pole carries it only into a latitude corresponding to Washington, D. C. Tasmania. reaching to position comparable to that of Boston and Buffalo. adds land of cool climate products needed to round out the predominantly tropical and semi tropical mainland.
 . The. island is largely highland, but has relatively broad belt of richs brown soil on the northern burder closest to Australia. There potatoes and other vegetables flourish and are shipped across to populous Mel bourne and Sydney. The most spec tacular agricultural development, however, has been in apple growing. It was found that the region around Hobart, the capital. produces this fruit to perfection. Now great orchards cover the countryside, and nor ethan 100000 bushels of apples are shipped yearly to Australia, Great Britain, the European continent and even Africa.
 Valuable Potential Water Power
 "one other important contribution which Tasmania makes which is lack ing somewhat on the mainland is water power and potential water power. Winds from the Indian Ocean blow a tremendous amount of moisture 10 the highlands of western Tasmania; and the rivers of that region, though not long, carry a huge volume of water. Much of the pre- cipitatlon is in the form of snow which blankets the mountains and melts slowly far into the summer. Already some water power has been developed and there are plans for more extensive development. Some of the power is operating wooden mills for the utilization of Tasmania and Australian wool, and this in- iustry is growing steadily.
 Heavy forests grow in Tasmania, 1, most of the trees being of Australian l types. There are some, however. | unlike those of Australia, which are l " del Fuego, the southernmost tip of | South America--a fact that has made i geologists wonder. The animals arc | mostly like those in Australia, chiefly | marsupials.
 When Tasmania was discovered in t64s by Dutch navigator, Tasman, | 1t was named Van Dieman's Land. a name which stuck to it for several ! centuries. The British hurriedly es- iablishcd the first settlement on the | island in 1903 for fear the French | were about to colonize it.
 Disappearance Of Natives Tragic Story
 The original inhibitants of Tas- mania were black and woolly-haired, but differed from the Australian aboriginies. They are said 10 have heen the most primitive people of modern times; having the develop ment of men Of the Stone Age. Only about 2,o00 strong in 1903, they rapidly disappeared. Their going. constitutes ont Of the most tragic chapters in the history of the white settlement of new lands.
 Like Australia, Tasmania suffered In the carly years Of its settlement from the blight of convict transporta- ton. Its first settlement was penal colony. and for a number of years only convicts and their guards made I'D its population. Free settlers came in also but shipload after shipload Of felons and robbers, horse-thieyes and burglars were dumped among them until 1858 when the British govern ment was induced to abandon that method of disposing Of it's criminals.
 Replica Of old EnglisI,
 Naturally Tasmania in the early days. with such human material. was an inferno. Many convicts escaped 10 the back country. They became 'bush-ranEers,' unprincipled thugs who. operating in bands, attacked the settlers. robbed them ,and killed their victims like wild beasts. Their brutal treatment of the natives aroused their enmity against the whites and they, too, attacked the settlements. This lead 10 retaliation in which the blacks were practically exterminated. The few survivors were placed on a reservation in 1882 but they did not thrive and the last full blooded native died in 1878. Only a few haif-castes remain today. After the natives were gotten out of the way the bush-rangers wre rounded up and executed.
 "Pursed of its unruly elements by the elimination of the blacks and the bush-ransers, and by the exodus ] ef many ez-convicts to the Australian gold fields, Tasmania settled down 10 ! quiet life in which today one can find no traces of the hectic pioneering days. The inhabitants are almost en-