COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 



1381 



both (geologists and working miners are of opinion that the mineral resources of 



Australia, so far from being exhausted, have been little more than indicated. Then 



a great future for mining in Australia, but it will call for science, skill, capital, 

 machinery and organization. 



THE PASTORAL INTEREST. 



HPHE first and largest factor in the development of Australia has been the pastoral 

 industry. Many years before the discovery of gold precipitated the scattered settle- 

 ments into a nation, the growth of wool had established the country on a sound 

 commercial basis. The story of the pastoral industry begins at an early period in the 

 history of Australian settlement. When Governor Phillip arrived in i 788, he brought 

 with him but very little live stock ; one bull, four cows, one calf, one stallion, three 

 mares, three foals, twenty-nine sheep, twelve pigs and a few goats comprised the whole 

 of the original flocks and herds. Yet as soon as the settlers had the opportunity of 

 observing the adaptabilities of the country that lay round about them, some of them 

 recognized its suitability for 

 grazing purposes, and very 

 soon a certain amount of 

 interest was taken in the breed- 

 ing of sheep. Captain John 

 Macarthur stands out as the 

 most prominent in this direc- 

 tion. He began at a very early 

 period to accumulate flocks, 

 and by i 795 he had collected 

 about one thousand sheep. 

 Being an observant man, he 

 noticed that, under the in- 

 fluence of the climate and 

 the pasture, the sheep then 

 in the colony, though of low 

 quality, were already begin- 

 ning to show an improved 

 llt.-rce, and he saw how-the 

 improvement could be ex- 

 pedited if better stock could 

 be imported. In 1796, Cap- 

 tains Waterhouse and Kent were commissioned to proceed to the Cape of Good 

 Hope to procure supplies for the settlement. Macarthur and others gave these Cap- 

 tains a general order to purchase for them some good wool-bearing sheep to mix 

 with their own. On their arrival at the Cape, they found that some sheep out of the 

 famous Escurial flocks, presented by the Spanish Court to the Dutch Government, had 

 been sent there under the charge of a Scotch care-taker, who had died, leaving his 





CAPTAIN JOHN MACARTHUR. 



