CHAPTER X 



THE SPENCER GULF DISTRICT 



Port Augusta, one of the most thriving ports of South 

 Australia, stands at the head of Spencer Gulf; but it is, in 

 my opinion, a place of far more interest to the mercantile 

 man than to a lover of the picturesque. It is a flat, 

 uninteresting-looking place, more remarkable for its huge 

 piles of grain-bags, its store-sheds, and its wharves, than for 

 anything else. The corn grown on an immense area of 

 the adjacent country is shipped from Port Augusta, and 

 grain trains are constantly arriving from the interior. 

 There was a time when the corn was brought down to the 

 wharves much faster than it could be shipped ; the conse- 

 quence was that enormous piles of bags were often to be 

 seen heaped up on the ground near the water. One such 

 pile that was shown to me was said to consist of fifty 

 thousand bags of wheat, and I can well believe that this 

 assertion was no exaggeration. 



But though Port Augusta is a place of little interest, 

 except to certain classes of men, there is much that is 

 remarkable and beautiful in the surrounding country. The 

 shores of the gulf are flat and muddy ; but mountains of 

 striking elevation and curious shape are in full view. 



The old idea that the interior of Australia was an 

 inland sea may not have been so wild a conception as it 

 is now generally thought to have been. There are strong 

 indications that, at a geologically recent date, the sea 

 penetrated very far inland, perhaps nearly right across the 

 continent, forming what may justly be termed an inland sea. 



The water seems to have gradually receded, leaving behind 



101 



