CXCVI. THE MURRAY WATERS. 
River and the immense territory drained; only 158,499 
square miles make any effective contribution to the flow, 
whereas 255,754 square miles are set down as non-con- 
tributing. The two great reasons for disparity between 
the area of the catchment and volume of flow are:—(1) 
the almost level character of the catchment, and (2) the 
rainfall over the deltaic area is distributed through so many 
days of the year that it is quickly absorbed, and very little 
water flows off. Asan instance, the records of the Booligal 
district, extending over a number of years, show the average 
annual rainfall to be 12°24 inches, with an average of forty- 
four rainy days per annum. The following table shows 
the contributing and non-contributing areas of the four 
States in square miles :-— | 
State. Contributing area, Non-contributing area. 
Queensland 67,690 36,835 
New South Wales 75,499 158,863 
Victoria 15,310 30,669 
South Australia nil 24,387 
158,499 255,704 
If rainfall to the extent of only five inches per annum 
over the immense catchment area of the Murray Basin 
actually reached the river, after making a liberal allowance 
for evaporation and percolation, the annual discharge in 
the South Australian portion of the river would exceed 
3,000,000,000,000 cubic feet of water. This would at once 
settle the question of navigability, and allay the fears of 
the South Australians respecting diversions by the upper 
riparian States for the purposes of irrigation and water 
conservation. 
Lakes Alexandrina and Albert and the channels at the 
Murray mouth cover 300 square miles, and a large quantity 
of water, estimated at about 42,000,000,000 cubic feet per 
annum is lost by evaporation. South Australia contends 
