30 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



is true that, in the interior of this gigantic island, most 

 of the land, remote as it is from the sea, is desert, 

 arid, and worthless as the Sahara; but the mighty 

 margin reached by the sweet influences of the various 

 oceans is vast enough and rich enough to maintain a 

 population in wealth and prosperity at least a hundred 

 times as large as it at present carries. It is warm, 

 even hot, but it is healthy, and every form of wealth, 

 both mineral and vegetable, abounds, and is easily 

 obtainable by man. Yet it must be admitted that, 

 compared with the amazing development of the United 

 States, and even Canada, its progress is extremely 

 slow. Were it germane to our subject, it would be 

 easy to find many reasons, not excuses, for this ; but 

 they would be far from satisfactory, and would, indeed, 

 be rather mortifying to our pride. 



What, however, we can say with emphasis is that 

 Australia is geographically, and consequently climati- 

 cally, one of the most highly favoured countries in 

 the whole world. It possesses all the qualifications 

 needed by a land for the making of a mighty nation. 

 It is hot, no doubt, but by no means unbearably so, 

 and it is so far from being too humid that one of its 

 principal drawbacks to prosperity is drought occasion- 

 ally. But it may be said that in the whole of its 

 cultivable and habitable area, it is fitted to be the 

 home of the white race, and there can be little doubt 

 that in the future it will be the seat of a dense popula- 

 tion, perhaps even greater than that of its giant sister 

 British North America, which is now, in spite of its 

 many climatic disabilities, making such mighty strides 

 in prosperity. South of Australia, again, is the lovely 

 island of Tasmania, which might fitly be called the 



