440 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1030 



ousted the flora and fauna of the soil. 

 Here is one well-known illustration of the 

 immigration of plants. Charles Darwin, 

 on the voyage of the Beagle, visited the is- 

 land of St. Helena in the year 1836. He 

 wrote "that the number of plajits now 

 found on the island is 746, and that out of 

 these fifty-two alone are indigenous spe- 

 cies." The immigrants, he said, had been 

 imported mainly from England, but some 

 from Australia, and, he continued, "the 

 many imported species must have de- 

 stroyed some of the native kinds, and it is 

 only on the highest and steepest ridges 

 that the indigenous flora is now predomi- 

 nant." 



Set yourselves to write a geography of 

 Australia as Australia was when first made 

 known to Europe, and compare it with a 

 geography now. Suppose Australia to 

 have been fully discovered when Euro- 

 peans first reached it, but consider the sur- 

 face then and the surface now, and the liv- 

 ing things upon the surface then and now. 

 Will not man have been found to be a 

 geographical agency? How much waste 

 land, how many fringes of desert have been 

 reclaimed? The wilderness has become pas- 

 ture land, and pasture land, in turn, is be- 

 ing converted into arable. The Blue Moun- 

 tains, which barred the way to the interior, 

 are now a health resort. Let us see what 

 Sir Joseph Banks wrote after his visit to 

 Australia on Captain Cook's first voyage in 

 1770. He has a chapter headed "Some Ac- 

 count of that part of New Holland now 

 called New South Wales. ' ' New Holland he 

 thought "in every respect the most barren 

 country I have seen " ; " the fertile soil bears 

 no kind of proportion to that which seems by 

 nature doomed to everlasting barrenness." 

 "In the whole length of coast which we 

 sailed along there was a very unusual same- 

 ness to be observed in the face of the coun- 

 try. Barren it may justly be called, and 



in a very high degree, so far, at least, as we 

 saw. " It is true that he only saw the land 

 by the sea, but it was the richer eastern 

 side of Australia, the outer edge of New 

 South Wales and Queensland. What ani- 

 mals did he find in Australia? He "saw 

 an animal as large as a greyhound, of a 

 mouse color, and very swift." "He was 

 not only like a greyhound in size and run- 

 ning, but had a tail as long as any grey- 

 hound's. What to liken him to I could not 

 tell." Banks had a greyhound with him, 

 which chased this animal. "We observed, 

 much to our surprise, that, instead of going 

 upon aU fours, this animal went only on 

 two legs, making vast bounds." He found 

 out that the natives called it kangooroo, 

 and it was "as large as a middling lamb." 

 He found "this immense tract of land," 

 which he said was considerably larger than 

 all Europe, "thinly inhabited, even to ad- 

 miration, at least that part of it that we 

 saw." He noted the Indians, as he called 

 them, whom he thought "a very pusillani- 

 mous people." They "seemed to have no 

 idea of traffic"; they had "a wooden 

 weapon made like a short scimitar. ' ' Sup- 

 pose a new Sir Joseph Banks eame down 

 from the planet Mars to visit Australia at 

 this moment, what account would he give 

 of it in a geographical handbook for the 

 children of Mars? He would modify the 

 views about barrenness, if he saw the corn- 

 fields and flocks and herds; if he visited 

 Adelaide, he would change his opinion as 

 to scanty population, though not so, per- 

 haps, if he went to the back blocks. He 

 would record that the population was al- 

 most entirely white, apparently akin to a 

 certain race in the North Sea, from which, 

 by tradition, they had come; that their 

 worst enemies could not call them pusillani- 

 mous; that they had some ideas of traffic, 

 and used other weapons than a wooden 

 scimitar; and he would probably give the 



