December i, 1881.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
485 
Chinese and Kaneka, the case of the British work- 
man arid labourer is no d iUbt often a hard one. But 
bis destiny, if he would but see it, is to direct labour 
or to perform it by menus of euch fatigue-saving 
Mr. Graham dro\ 
some most dillioi 
Townsvillo was o 
on to the rich gc 
Hugbenden. It 
continental line t( 
all the Queenslar 
gauge, which ana 
liau Colonies will 
I noticed that, tin 
the sleepers (timl 
close together. \ 
all the «ay, and 
after h aving it, h 
very fortunate fo 
interested in ihe 
ntry. The last 35 miles to 
ihvay which is being pushed 
es of Charters Toweis and to 
ultimately join the trans- 
iulf of Carpentaria. It is like 
vays on the 3 feet G inches 
lirly for this country and its 
should think all the Austrn- 
:the English gauge of 4' 8$". 
scarcely any ballast, and that 
ig plentiful) were laid very 
the hill ranges close by us 
; back to Townsville a week 
een much of interest. It was 
Shat Mr. Jeff ray, so largely 
3 and so ready to 
help me to seo everything, was my fellow-passenger 
The ranges of mountains we skirted in sailing from 
Townsvibe to Cooktown seem to mo most likely to 
be the scenes of coffee, cinchona and other tropical 
cultivation : the «Card well district, opposite which is 
Hinchinbrook Island, theBcllenden Ker rauges &c. We 
could not land at Cooktown. and so I missed seeing 
a town where the Chinese largely outnumber the Euro- 
peans. That is what is dreaded all 01 er Australia, 
but I think the dread a needless one. John China- 
man comes where he can get gold on the surface 
to cirry away, hut 1 have seen a notice of only one 
case where the Cel stials have boldly tackled a reef. 
What with diamond drills, borers and other machinery, 
my belief is that mining ere long will cease to be 
a precarious pursuit, becoming steidily and largely pro- 
fitable. I do not think so poorly of our race as to 
enppose that it Cannot assert a 1 (I retaiu its superiority 
over the olive-skinned Mongolians as well as over 
the black races of Australia and the Paci.ic Isles. 
But the aid of the Hindu cooly is wanted in Northern 
Queensland at least — where sugar can be cultivated 
without risk of frost, but with risk of fever (to some 
extent) for the whito man. 
Amongst our passengers from Townsville were a 
Mr. Chester, Police Magistrate of Thursday Island, 
and a Mr. Elliott who was proceeding to 'complete 
turvvys of the recently discovered port at Poiut Parker 
on the Gulf of Carpentaria. That port promises so 
w. II that General fielding and party are now sur- 
veying a line for a trans-continental railway to it, in- 
stead of the one originally projected through 8011th 
Australia to Port Darwin. The merits of this lino to 
Daranslandera are that it will run entirely through 
their own territory while opening access to the Iudian 
Ocean. The South Australian Government have re- 
solved to construct their line at the rate of £200,000 
per auuum at the utmost, from revenue or bor- 
rowed money. This means ten years delay. The 
Queen-land Government on tho other hand, have sanc- 
tioned the principle of paying a private company (who 
have employed General Fielding) by alternate blocks of 
land on oach side of the railway. It will thus be the 
uterest of such a company to introduce population 
■ to cultivate their lam B. The railway 'now finished 
from Brisbane to Roma will be continued to tho Gnlf 
I of Carpentaria on tho one band and to the junction 
with th" N. S. Wales lines on the other, tho lines 
from Rockhampton, Townsvillo, &c, being joined on 
to the inam line. Tho completion of such a compre- 
hensive scheme will give an immoDso impetus to the 
prosperity of every onterprizo in Queensland 1 am 
only giving tho bare outlines »>f a magnificent scheme. 
If a mod port is settled, the only other objeolion is 
the swampy nature of the shore of the Gulf, from the 
confluence of so many rivers thero. On the vast 
swamps the true rice plant orijza saliva is i-aid to be 
indigenous, and Mr. Armit describes millions of pigeons 
as feeding on the grain. Mr. Chester told us that 
these pigeons, or other pigeons, flocks of which we 
saw oil' the coast of Australia, came across from New 
Guinea, t-'rom this great island we were only 70 to 90 
miles distant when we landed on Thursday Island. 
Malta Melons —A correspondent sends us six 
melon seeds received by him from Malta, and ask i 
us to give them a trial in Colombo. We shall do 
so and report the result. 
Gold. — The following statement of the approximate 
export of gold from Australasia, shews how great has 
been the falling off in the Southern Colonics in the out- 
put of the precious metal :- 
1S65 ... £9,553*640 I 1873 
1866 ... 9,018,442 1874 
1S67 ... S,7S3,489 | 1875 
1SK8 ... 9 351,191 I 1876 
1S69 ... 10,382,955 | 1877 
1870 ... 8,237,367 I 187S 
1871 ... 7,605 893 1S79 
1872 ... 7,597,021 | 
Last year th 
it fell far si 
previously. — Madras Mail. 
Enemy of Ledgeriana: the "Ku-uk."— In Mr. 
Vloens's report for 1879 on the Government cinchona 
enterprize in Java he stated that half a bou w of 
Ledgeriana at Kioen-Goeuocng had been "entirely 
£9,369,120 
7,662,925 
6.949,516 
5,793,374 
7,295,8118 
5,5(57,084 
2,103,302 
is larger than in 1S79, but 
£10,3^2,9.55 of eleven years 
destroyed by the 
which had chosen 
for its food." W( 
this statement thi 
was not given. 1 
liud the following e 
a big full 
•oek, the larva of a chafer, 
fine rootlets in this plantation 
We expressed regret in afoot no.e to 
that the scientific name of this insect 
lu Kigg's Sundanese Dictionary we 
g explanation of the word :— " Ku-uk, 
onggret. Also the beetle which is often 
found among old horse or buffaloe-dung : in this 
latter sen-e it is a geotrupes." " Onggrit, the grub of 
the Ligi, a cockchafer called Melolontha vulgaris. 
Ibe onggrgt lives in tiie ground, aud it is a soft white 
grub with sharp red jaws. It is one to two inches long 
and is very destructive to young plants, the bark 
of the roots of which it feeds upon, and in the 
humahs, or upland rice plantations, it sometimes nearly 
destroys the whole crop by eating off the young and 
Paper Plates. — The latest application of paper is 
the adoption of paper plates by some of the great 
restaurants and cafis in Berlin. The innovation was 
first introduced during the summer of last year by 
the adventurous landlord of » much frequented open- 
air restiuiraut. Every customer who ordered bread 
and butter, rolls, cakes, buns, or similar articles, 
had them served to him upon a little paper-plate, 
made of a light paper-maohe, adorned with 11 pretty 
border in relief and having at the first glance a great 
similarity to porcelain. Guests, waiters, aud hosts 
were all pleased with the novelty ; it saved the waiters 
many a deduction from thi ir wages on account of 
breakages, which the deftest and cleverest can scarcely 
avoid when he handles hundreds of pieces of crockery 
during a single afternoon and evening. The paper 
plates wore 80 cheap that the landloid did not care 
to assert bin ownership over them, and his customers 
were allowed to carry them away, like tho pretty 
serviettes of thiu paper used in so many restaurants 
in Holland. There was also a considerable saving of 
tho time lost and the chance of accident incurred in the 
cleansing of eartlxn ware pottery-. The success of the 
experiment ha* been 30 marked that the new species 
of plates is likely to be introduced into a great num- 
ber of restaurants.— Tlx I'a/xr World. 
