Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/95

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MOUNT AINB AI RIVERS. as the waters flow ; men congregate in cities to avail them- seWes of surrounding advantages ; population and wealth go hand in hand, and the country is called great. I Vast as is Australia, no high lands are in or near its centre. One chain of hills or mountains runs from the base of the Cape York Peninsula along the eastern coast, its highest points culminating m the Snowy Mountains lor Australian Alps in ilie south-east, where the simimit of Mount Kosciusko exceeds 7300 feet above the sea. Of this Cordillera the watershed is sometimes less, seldom is it more, than one hundred miles from the east coast. A spur from jit runs westward from the Snowy Mountains through the I Colony of Victoria, dividing tho northern waters, which are affluents of the Murray, from the shorter streams which run into Bass's Straits and the Southern Ocean.^ Curvuig from their sources in the Snowy Mountains, the Murray, the Tuuiut, and Murruuibidgee rivers find their I way to the plains of the interior before they join the Darling River, which drains an enormous area, receiving tributaries from the western slopes of the Cordillera in New South Wales and Queensland. In Ijoth these colonies various rivers find then- way east- ward to the Pacific from the cordillera; and from Queens- land other rivers flow to the Gulf of Ctu-pentaria, Roughly speaking, it may be said that westward of the 140th degree of E. longitude the well-w^atered portion of Australia disappears; the eastern conhllera being the genius of the difference. Western Australia is poor in rivers, and the Great Austrahan Bight on the south coast presents the most irredeemably barren front to the Southern Ocean. To the west of Adelaide the combined Murray and Darling Rivers carry their tribute to the sea at Encounter Bay; but eva]»oratiou and percolation luive diminished its [waters long before Lake Alexandrina receives it. The Yarra Yarra at Melbourne in a comparatively short course flows from spurs of the Australian Alps, and several ever-tiowing rivers run from them with rapid courses to the ' In the first edition of this work some space was devoted to a physicttl ileacriptkm of Australia; Dr. A. R. U LiUaee'8 '"AustralasiiL" Ha.ft iw^kAa VS* atiperfluoiis to enter into details on the subject ill iMa etoVoB.