CLXIV. ECONOMIC ASPECT OF ARTESIAN BORING IN N.S.W. 
the fact that there are about 1,000 artesian and flowing 
wells from the Jim River valley to the Missouri River. 
The estimated amount of water flowing from each is 100 
gallons per minute, or a total of more than 52,000,000,000 
gallons per year. Not only do these wells supply water 
for live stock, but they make thousands of ponds, lakes, 
and small streams; they fill sloughs, low places, and old 
lake beds. Many others could be cited, but perhaps 
sufficient has been said to show to some extent and generally 
what has been done in boring in America. 
NEW SouTH WALES BORES. 
Having shewn generally what has been done in other 
lands, it may not be out of place to recapitulate briefiy the 
conditions which obtain on our western lands, which have 
both tried the patience and exhausted the substance of 
many of our pioneers, and to show at the same time the 
effect upon these conditions obtained by the means of 
artesian water, so that those unacquainted with the interior 
can realise in some degree what its influence means. The 
arid portion of New South Wales is that embraced by what 
is generally known as the Western Division of the State, 
which contains an area of some 79,000,000 acres. This 
division, made for the purpose of the Crown Lands Act, 
comprises the whole of the north-western portion of the 
State, and follows largely in its direction the course of the 
river Darling. An area of some 26,000,000 acres of this 
tract of country is defined as *‘ Cretaceous”’ or artesian 
water-bearing. Following the course of the Darling and 
its tributaries, narrow strips of land adjacent to them are 
rich alluvial flats for the most part of black soil; behind 
them lie large extents of chocolate and red soils, and zolian 
deposits in the form of undulating sandhills. The larger 
area of the country in this division is probably of this latter 
character. The river flats carry poor distorted specimens of 
