vorable
elevation. Though this colony is called South Australia, it should be
known as Central Australia in respect to its actual geographical
position. It is destined in the near future to merit the name of the
granary of the country, being already largely and successfully devoted
to agriculture. This pursuit is followed in no circumscribed manner, but
in a large and liberal style, like that of our best Western farmers.
Immense tracts of land are also devoted to stock-raising, for the
purpose of furnishing "dead beef" for shipment to England in fresh
condition. South Australia contains nearly a million square miles, and
is therefore ten times larger than Victoria, and fifteen times the size
of England. It extends northward from the temperate zone, so that nearly
one half of its area lies within the tropics, while it has a coast-line
of five hundred miles along the great Southern Ocean. A vast portion of
its interior is uninhabited and indeed unexplored. The total population
of the whole colony is about four hundred thousand. Wheat, wool, wine,
copper, and meat are at present the chief exports.

Though gold has been found in this province to a very large extent, it
is not so abundant here as in other parts of Australia,--and yet since
these notes were begun new gold-fields have been discovered in this
section which are reported to be exceedingly rich. Statistics show that
somewhat over seventeen million pounds sterling in gold have been
exported from South Australia since its first discovery here. One mine
alone, known as the Moonta, has paid its shareholders in dividends the
large sum of twelve hundred thousand pounds sterling. Gold-digging as a
business, however, grows less and less attractive in the colony, though
the precious metal must continue to be produced here for many years to
come, by well-organized companies who possess ample machinery for
raising and crushing the quartz rock. But good wages, equalling the
average earned by miners, are now paid here by a dozen easier and more
legitimate occupations,--among the rest the large vineyards which
produced last year over three million gallons of pure native wine. The
great trouble is to procure laborers at all, notwithstanding the liberal
scale of wages paid. No community or section of country has ever yet
reached a permanent success, according to the usually accepted idea of
success, upon what may in this connection be denominated a gold basis.
"Let us cherish no