Page:Handbook of Western Australia.djvu/133

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Postal and Telegraphic.
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to Guildford, and from thence to Newcastle, York, and Northam, and by Bindoon to Victoria Plains, and to Fremantle. The Swan is navigated by passenger steamers to Perth, and by lighters beyond Guildford.

The Electric Telegraph is carried to all the principal centres of population, from Perth to Albany on the South coast, with stations at Williams and Kojonup; and from Albany to Eucla the line is now completed for connection with the South Australian lines, and so with Great Britain and the rest of the world; from Perth also to the Vasse on the South-west, and Geraldton on the North, by the Victoria Plains, Dongarra, and Greenough, and from Geraldton to Northampton, by the line of railroad. There is a Post Office in every town and village. There is only one line of public railroad in the Colony, now in the course of completion, viz., between Geraldton and Northampton. Its length is 34 miles, the gauge 3ft. 6m.; there are thirteen bridges of timber, varying from 1 span of 10 feet to 5 spans of 30 feet. The cost has been considerably more than £3,000 a mile. The stations will be at either end, with intermediate platforms at which trains will stop by signal.

Mails.—The Colonial steamer carries the mails and passengers monthly to and from Geraldton to Albany, touching at Fremantle, Bunbury, and Vasse, and making short intermediate trips with passengers and cargo, &c. Passengers to or from the Colony by mail steamers can be transhipped to any of those ports. The mail is carried overland from Perth to Albany twice a month, and to Geraldton once a week; a passenger-van runs once a month from Perth to Albany and returns in time for the mail; and the mails are carried in vans with passengers twice a week to the Avon Valley and Bunbury, and daily to Fremantle and Guildford.