DISCOVERY 



311 



fruit land. The heat which blazes in the harrowing 

 tales of our forefathers is no more than that which 

 thousands of Australians live and thrive in to-day. 

 It is not much greater, in fact, than that of more 

 southerly and settled parts, and, though there are 

 extremes of heat and cold, both are lightly borne 

 because both are so dry. The winter climate is 

 healthy and invigorating in the extreme. Certain 

 parts suffer from severe dust-storms, and flies and 

 mosquitoes are, in some seasons and places, sore 

 plagues. 



As far as concerns surface features, Central Australia 



dams. More serious are the broad, sandy river- courses 

 and wide lowland flats subject to sudden devastating 

 floods. These, sand-hills, dust-storms, and the fre- 

 quent lack of a natural supply of non- mineralised 

 water for boiler use, are the chief physical difficulties 

 facing the railway and road engineers. For other 

 means of transport the conditions are often trying, 

 but seldom really difficult. 



It is rainfall and geological structure which really 

 stamp this region with its character. The Clerk of the 

 Weather has not been kind to Central Australia. 

 As one writer puts it : " Central Australia is a fore- 



CENTRAL AUSTRA1,I.\ (MARKED WITH THE HEAVV LINE). 



is not badly off. The east half consists of a vast low- 

 lying plain varied only by rocky ridges, isolated flat- 

 topped hills, and occasional belts of sand-ridge country. 

 The west half is a plateau, with an average elevation 

 of about 2,000 ft., cut across by numerous parallel 

 ridges, running from east to west, notably the Mac- 

 donnell and the Musgrave Ranges, which rise to about 

 5,000 ft. North to south communications are not 

 much impeded by these ridges, because most of them 

 are low, while the Macdonnells are cleft across north 

 to south in many places by striking steep-sided gorges, 

 offering here easy passage and there splendid sites for 



caster's paradise ! . . . [He] could predict fair 

 weather every day of the year and only be wrong 

 four times in a hundred." The driest part of Aus- 

 tralia lies around and west of Lake Eyre, and the 

 whole region except the north lies within the lo-in. 

 line and is, therefore, in current climatological lan- 

 guage, " arid " or " desert." It is just too far north 

 to get much winter rain from the south, and far enough 

 south to get only the fringe of the north monsoonal 

 rains. Even worse, the rainfall is most erratic : the 

 heart of Australia is not dead, but it is very fickle. 

 This has been a great curse. It accounts for the 



