'7 



and instructive that it will bear reproduction. He says: "The 

 wholeof the settled district, nearly the si/e ot" France, is usually 

 level, often undulating, but never mountainous. The western sea- 

 bo.ird is generally comparatively Hat country of a sand\- character, 

 composed ch icily of the detritus of old coral reefs, which lias been 

 again deposited by the action of water ; more inland is a formation 

 which is here called ironstone, it appears to be chiefly a con- 

 glomerate of disintegrated granite, stained with iron ; granite, 

 slates, quart/, pipeclay, and in places trap, are all found in this 

 country. The Darling range, for instance, presents these 

 characteristics ; it runs from north to south in the central district 

 inland of Perth, and appears once to have formed the coast line. 

 The whole country, from north to south, excepting the spots 

 cleared for cultivation, may be described as one vast forest, in the 

 sense of being heavily timbered ; sometimes, but comparatively 

 seldom, the traveller comes upon an open sandplain, covered with 

 shrubs and flowering plants in infinite variety and exquisite beauty, 

 and often, especially in the northern and eastern districts, low 

 scrubby trees and bushes fill the place of timber. On the whole, 

 the soil may be said to possess immense productive powers under 

 favorable circumstances." It may be added that the late Sir F. 

 Napier Broome, who succeeded the late Sir W. F. C. Robinson to 

 the Governorship in 1882, on a public platform expressed his convic- 

 tion that the agricultural land available for settlement was capable of 

 maintaining a much larger population than the colony at present 

 possesses. Of the colony and people he said : " The more one 

 sees and knows of Western Australia and its people the more they 

 win upon the newcomer." In later speeches he set a still higher 

 value on the colony, its resources and capabilities, as well as the 

 energy of its " handful of inhabitants." A large population could 

 be maintained if the magnificent paddocks of Colonel Ashburner 

 (another absentee landlord), bordering the Canning river, were 

 subdivided. There is here one of the largest and most desirable 

 swamps that anyone can point to, and as one of its boundaries is 

 the river, the expense of draining it would be compara- 

 tively light. What a potato field it would make for the 

 raising of two crops in the year, and the heaviest in the 

 summer, when supplies are dearest. A black, peaty mould, the 

 depth of which has not been reached, fills the swamp with a sturdy 

 growth of water-loving vegetation. Now we are at Kehnscott, and 

 the Gosse estate, a wide spread of meadow lea, to which the red- 

 gums, sparsely scattered, lend a very park-like aspect. It is satis- 

 factory to be able to state that this holding is being cut up and sold 

 for orchard purposes, on the principle that suburban blocks, being 

 much higher in price than more distant places, should be made to 

 yield the largest possible sum per acre. The Gosse patrimony 

 would grow corn to perfection, but it is too valuable for corn, 

 while alongside a railway line a fruit producer could be sure that his 



