AUSTRALIA 



which at the same date had 201,675 inhabitants. 

 The settlers in Australia have come largely 

 from Great Britain, records showing that about 

 mmtv-seven per cent of the population wen 

 born either in Australia of British descent or 

 somewhere in the United Kingdom. Among 

 all the civilized countries of the world, none 

 is more sp;. led than Australia, which 



averages but 1.67 person to each square mile. 

 This population is very unevenly distributed, 

 Victoria having fifteen to the square mile and. 

 the Northern Territory but one person to each 

 175 square miles of area. Strangely enough, 

 in an agricultural country, the tendency is 

 strong for the people to congregate in the big 

 Thus it is estimated that 38.05 per 

 cent of the inhabitants are distributed among 

 the six capital cities and their suburbs. These 

 capitals are Melbourne, Victoria ; Sydney, New 

 South Wales; Brisbane, Queensland; Adelaide, 

 South Australia; Perth, West Australia; Ho- 

 bart, Tasmania. Northern Territory is still 

 so new that its capital, Darwin, has not grown 

 beyond the size of a village. 



The Australian states have always clone much 

 to encourage immigration, not only by making 

 the acquisition of land easy, but even by pay- 

 ing a part or all of the expenses of desirable 

 settlers. The heaviest immigration for any 

 decade occurred between 1881 and 1890, when 

 there were 244,284 more arrivals than depart- 

 ures. Later, when the charm of newness died 



COMPARATIVE AREA 

 Australia and the United States 



out, immigration decreased, and between 1896 

 and 1905 there were more emigrants than 

 immigrants; but the tide again turned and in 

 recent years the number of arrivals has been 

 very large. 



Coast Line and Islands. Like the great con- 

 tinent of Africa to the west, Australia has a 



l AUSTRALIA 



comparatively regular coast line. On the south 

 the shore curves gently inward, Forming the 

 Great Australian Bight; on the north a sharper 

 incurving makes the Gulf of Carpentaria, in- 

 closed within the peninsulas of York and Arn- 

 hem Land; and there are a few lesser inden- 

 tations. But nowhere is there such a condition 

 of fiords and outstanding capes as prevail in 

 certain parts of North America, Europe and 

 South America. Its coast line of 11,310 miles 

 is little more than two-thirds that of Norway. 

 if all the indentations of the latter are taken 

 into account. 



Of the islands close to the Australian coast 

 only two, Tasmania and New Guinea, are of 

 considerable importance. Some of the others 

 are but jutting rocks or coral reefs, and many 

 of them are uninhabited. To the north and 

 east lies the great group of the East Indies, 

 containing the largest islands in the world, and 

 scientists have found what they regard as con- 

 vincing evidence that in ages past these islands 

 joined Australia with Asia, which at its nearest 

 point is now 1,800 miles away. The transition 

 nature of the plant and animal life in the 

 East Indies would not alone suffice as evi- 

 dence, but the shallowness of most of the 

 intervening waters seems to indicate that the 

 islands are merely the highest points of a long- 

 submerged continental land mass. Perhaps 

 even New Zealand, to the southeast, was once 

 connected with Australia geographically. 



A most interesting feature of the coast of 

 Australia is the Great Barrier Reef, a coral 

 formation which extends for almost 1,000 miles 

 along the northeast coast, at places as close 

 as ten miles to the shore, elsewhere as much 

 as 100 miles away. When storms are raging 

 this great reef may be very dangerous, and 

 many ships have been wrecked upon it, but 

 for the most part it is helpful rather than 

 harmful, as it constitutes a natural break- 

 water shielding ships inside it from the storms 

 of the open ocean. 



Surface Features. This smallest of the con- 

 tinents or largest of the islands, as it is some- 

 times called, is much simpler in its relief forms 

 than any of the other great land masses. A 

 glance at the accompanying colored map of 

 Australia will help to fix in the mind the conti- 

 nent's physical features. The chief mountain 

 system, which does not approach in height 

 those of the other continents, is known as a 

 whole as the Eastern Mountains, though it is 

 given various local names in different sections 

 of the country, as the Australian Alps, in Vic- 



