6 Australian Life 



its tributaries, the Darling and the Murrumbid- 

 gee, forms the most considerable waterway of 

 Australia, opening up part of the interior to river 

 vessels of shallow draught. Other rivers flowing 

 westward, such as the Diamantina and the Bar- 

 coo, lose themselves in the sands of Central Aus- 

 tralia, or trickle into the salt lakes of the interior. 

 In the dry season, they can hardly be termed 

 rivers, being rather a series of water-holes, con- 

 nected by a dry stream-bed. But when fed by 

 the tropical rains of a wet season, these rivers dis- 

 charge immense volumes of water, sometimes 

 overflowing their banks and flooding large tracts 

 of country. 



When the contrast between coastal Australia 

 and the interior is considered, the one district 

 well watered and possessing rivers navigable, al- 

 though short, while the other is arid and flat, and 

 lacks rivers communicating with the sea, it is 

 not surprising to find that the population remains 

 in the coastal districts. There are less than four 

 million people in the whole continent, and more 

 than four-fifths of them reside within a hundred 

 miles of the coast. The centres of settlement, 

 dotted around the coast, are necessarily far apart, 

 for as the country was settled, it was split into a 

 number of states for the purpose of government. 

 Each of these states until the Federation, which 

 began with the present century was concerned 

 solely with its own affairs, and in each of them 

 there grew up one centre of population and trade. 



