256 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALIA. 



Mr. E. L. Jack, Government geologist for Queensland, that to the arte- 

 sian water supply of the western part of that colony there is practi- 

 cally no limit. In his recent elaborate investigations into the geolog- 

 ical structure of that part of the country Mr. Jack appears to have 

 satisfied himself that the " water-bearing beds of the Lower Cretaceous 

 formation" are far more extensive than had formerly been anticipated. 

 The superficial area in which they occur is estimated at 5,000 square 

 miles of Queen slaud territory alone, and more extensive examination 

 will very probably show that they are far more widely distributed in 

 other parts of the interior of the continent than Mr. Jack's recent 

 investigations have shown them to be. The physical structure of the 

 country is certainly favorable to this view, and if it be found that these 

 water-bearing beds actually occur over the whole area formerly occu- 

 pied by the great inland sea by which our continent was severed from 

 north to south, the barren desert country of Central Australia will 

 no longer bid defiance to the extension of British enterprise and 

 settlement. 



As far back as 1863 the late Eev. J. E. Tenison- Woods, in a paper 

 read at the meeting of the British Association at Newcastle on-Tyne, 

 on "The rivers of the interior of Australia," drew attention to the favor- 

 able conditions of the Central basin for the formation of artesian wells, 

 and in 1866 the same view was strongly advocated in a series of papers 

 which that well-known authority contributed to the Australasian. Later 

 on Mr. Tenison-Woods pointed out that — 



"In the central depression of the Continent and in North Australia 

 there is a line of groups of thermal and cold springs covering several 

 hundred square miles. These send forth water from great depths, and 

 are no doubt derived from a central underground reservoir whose 

 sources are on the slopes of the tableland. That the waters come from 

 great depths is seen from the fact of the temperature and the mounds 

 of sinister or travestine around them." 



Of course no artesian water supply, however extensive, can equal in 

 value a natural one, nor yet will it ever take the place of a regular and 

 abundant rainfall ; still, it will operate as an enormously powerful factor 

 in the development of the natural and artificial resources of the coun- 

 try, and it is hoped that recent investigations will be followed up with 

 equal success in other parts of the Continent, to the manifest advantage 

 of our pastoral and agricultural industries and national prosperity. 



In addition to what I have said regarding the influence of our conti- 

 nental highlands upon the distribution of rainfall and settlement, it 

 must also be pointed out in this connection that the only true river sys- 

 tem of the country is so regulated and controlled by the peculiar phys- 

 ical structure of the mountain ranges of the southeastern part of the 

 Continent that few of the rivers themselves are of any value as great 

 commercial highways from the sea to the interior. On the eastern coast 

 most of the streams are short and traverse areas of steep declivity. 

 During periods of heavy rains their capacity is inadequate to carry off the 



