AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



but extensions and branches followed in rapid succession. By 1873, the North-Eastern 

 Line was open as far as Wodonga, on the Murray, though ten more years had to elapse 

 before the junction with the New South Wales system was effected. In 1883, the Vic- 

 torian Railways were vested by Act of Parliament in a Commission of three, holding 

 office for seven years, ajid the term has been renewed. By 1887, the colony had 

 1,880 miles under rail. The total amount spent on the railways of the colony by the 

 Government up to that year was ^26,479,206. The return on capital was then equal 

 to about 4.17 per cent., but this profit has since been reduced by unproductive branches. 

 The lines of Victoria comprise the Northern, Western, North-Eastern and Eastern Sys- 

 tems, with branches to nearly every important township. In fact, the central portion of 

 Victoria is the best railwayed part of Australia. 



The first sod turned in Queensland, in 1864, was that of the Great Southern and 

 Western Railway Line of that colony. This is carried at a height of 2,600 feet over 

 the Main Coast Range to Toowoomba, and thence southward to the junction with the 

 New South Wales Line to Sydney, at Tenterfield. The system of Queensland, as at 

 present developed, consists substantially of five trunk lines running from ports on the 

 coast to the west and north. Of these, the most southerly is the longest, and the third 

 northerly is connected with a line which has worked south from the head of the 

 Gulf of Carpentaria. In addition to the five trunk lines, there are several subsidiary and 

 connecting ones. The guage in Queensland is the narrow one, three feet six inches ; 

 that of New South Wales, the standard one of four feet eight and a half inches, and 

 that of Victoria, the broad one of five feet three inches. South Australia began with 

 the broad gauge, but all the later lines have been on the narrowest. On both the 

 New South Wales frontiers there is, therefore, a break of guage. In Tasmania, the 

 Trunk Line has been constructed by an English company on a Government guarantee, 

 but the arrangement being a constant cause of quarrel, an agreement was at last 

 arrived at under which the Government bought out the Company. In New Zealand 

 a great development of railway enterprise was caused by Sir Julius Vogel's great public 

 works and immigration policy, which he devised to give the colony a push after 

 the exhaustion that followed on the Maori War. To satisfy the different localities, 

 many of the lines had to be in the first instance detached, and the links are not yet 

 all filled in. Owing, too, to the physical geography of the country, many of the lines 

 compete with water traffic, and this, by preventing monopoly, keeps down profit. The 

 New Zealand guage is the narrow one. 



THE POSTAL SYSTEM. 



~*HE Postal System of Australasia had its obscure beginning in a small and very 

 unpretentious wooden structure, which stood at the northern end of George Street, 

 Sydney, or, as it was then called, High Street near the Queen's Wharf, at that time 

 known as the King's Wharf, in 1810. In that year one Isaac Nichols was appointed Post- 

 master, with authority to board the vessels entering the Harbour, and collect all letters 

 and parcels entrusted to the master or passengers for persons residing in the infant 

 settlement. It became the duty of the Postmaster to advertise this primitive mail 



