Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/100

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introduce it in Northern Australia, and then it will be found whether the purer and drier air of the south can repel it absolutely. The mountain chain, which qualifies the climate and the Boil, yields also the minerals which make AustraHa famous. Iron was found in Taj^mania hy early voyagers. It was long Imown to exist in rich ore in New South Wales. Coal was found in the earliest days at the Hunter river. The Hunter river coalfield is estimated to exceed 8000 h stpiare miles, and New South Wales is deemed to possess ■ 24,000 square miles of coalfields. In Queensland other ' larj^e fields exist, but no important seams have yet been ^ found except near the east coaet cordillera. Gold is found m in its fianks. in New South Wales at Bathurst and else- ^ where, throughout Alctoria, and in many parts of (^ueena- landj tlie ** yellow stave that puts odds among the rout m of nations'* has been found and exported by the ton. In f 1892, after much search, the great granite tract of Western Australia was found to yield on its flanks rich stores of gold, and attracted speculators and scrapers from all parts of the world. Copper made Sooth AustraHa rich, and abounds in New South Wales and Queensland. Tin crops up in the cortiillera between New England and Darling M Downs. ^ The cost of production, the measure of which is mainly the price of labour, lias alone prevented the extension of iron- smelting and tin and copper mining. Diamonds, small, but I of good quality, have been procured in the cordillera, and I precious stones of many khids. Timber, hard and durable, and excellent for the carpen- ter's craft, grows in vast forests on the flanks of the cordillera, and various forms of eucalyptus are scattered over the whole island.^ The jarrah of Western x^ustralia {EncahfptNs manfiuttta) has a peculiar reputation for its power to defy decay wlien submerged and exposed to the attacks of the dreaded teredo, and has been largely exported to India. The iron-bark (Encfilt/phiH stth'nKrt/h>fi) became from its durability a synonym i'or toughness. The fragrant- wooded M,H94 In Wallace's '^AuBtralasm/* 18^3, it h stated thiit *' there are more, than ItiO fipecies of eucalyptus in ATtstraiia," Of the acacia gemis iJjc same work sUtea that * there are nearly 30O speeiea" tbcris.