rsely-inhabited Australia. Our native fruits--apples, peaches, pears,
and the like--thrive here in such abundance, as to form a prominent item
in the exports, besides promoting a large and profitable industry in the
packing of preserved fruits, which are in universal use in Australia and
New Zealand. These canned fruits have an excellent and well-deserved
reputation. Here, also, we find enormous trees, with a circumference of
eighty feet near the ground, and a height of three hundred and fifty
feet. Fern-trees, with their graceful palm-like formation, are
frequently seen thirty feet in height. The country is well-wooded
generally, and traversed by pleasant watercourses; it is singularly
fertile, and rich in good harbors, especially upon the east coast. In
short, its hills, forests, and plains afford a pleasing variety of
scenery, while its rich pastures invite the stock-breeder to reap a
goodly harvest in the easiest manner.

Launceston is situated at the head of navigation, on the Tamar, where
the town nestles in the lap of a valley surrounded by high elevations.
It is regularly laid out in broad streets, lighted by gas, and has a
good water-supply brought from St. Patrick's River, fifteen miles east
of the city. There are numerous substantial stone buildings, and
everything bears a business-like aspect. There is a public library, and
several free schools of each grade. The North and South Elk Rivers rise
on different sides of Ben Lomond, and after flowing through some
romantic plains and gorges, they join each other at Launceston. The
sky-reaching mountain just named is worthy of its Scotch counterpart;
between it and Launceston is some of the finest river and mountain
scenery in all Tasmania. Ben Lomond is the chief object in the
landscape, wherever one drives or walks in this part of the island.
Tasmania possesses vast mineral wealth. The richest and most profitable
tin mine in the world is that of Mount Bischoff, situated about a
hundred and fifty miles from Launceston. The Beaconsfield gold mine is
only thirty miles from the city, besides several others not much further
away, which are rich in their yield of the precious metal.

The journey from here to Hobart, a distance of one hundred and twenty
miles, takes us through the length of the island in a southeasterly
direction. We pass through lovely glades, over broad plains, across
rushing streams, and around the base of abrupt mountains. Hobart was so
named in 18