ee Se 
NATURE VERSUS THE AUSTRALIAN. ~ 
the great white. populations have developed on the coalfields. (See the 
most valuable article by “ Politicus” in the Fortnightly Review for 
February, 1918.) 
Since this is the most convertible of Nature’s gifts to man, I have 
tabulated the world’s chief sources of supply. (From the Geological 
Congress Reports on the Coal Resources of the World.) 
Tons of coal x 10° 
1. U.S.A. SS 54 .. 3,838 
2. Canada = we .. 1,234 >The great coal countries. 
3. China if Cit: oy. tth F ’ 
4. Germany .. a 1d 
5. Britain .. a .. 189 { Important coal countries, 
- 6. Siberia A sic eo 3 
7. Australia .. re ee 
7,017 
The world’s available supply is said to be about 8,000 x 10° tons, 80 
that these seven countries control practically the whole amount. India: 
(79), Russia (60), South Africa (56), Colombia (27), France (17), 
and Belgium (11) obviously follow a long way behind. 
Tt is gratifying to see that Australia ranks fairly high in the list. 
Her fields are all distributed along a belt from Hobart to Townsville; 
but the chief settlement will always'!be ‘around Sydney, Morwell, 
Brisbane, and in the Fitzroy basin. As we have seen, this is the best 
favoured region as far as climate is concerned, so that Nature herself 
seems disposed to bring about more and more centralization. 
One problem to which much attention has been given still remains 
to be discussed. This is the probable trend of settlement in our tropics. 
Obviously the most logical method is to find what foreign regions will 
compare with our regions, and to see what experience teaches in those 
regions. 
While bare climatological data do not completely define the environ- 
ment of a locality, still they give valuable clues. I have published else- 
where a table showing that Broome is a homoclime (similar climate) of 
Banana at the mouth of the 'Congo.* Carnarvon and Wiluna resemble 
German South-west Africa. Darwin is like Cuttack, on the east coast 
of India, Townsville is like Calcutta or Rio, and Wyndham like Tinne- 
yelli, at the tip of the Peninsula of India. ! 
‘These parallels must give any one pause who wishes to settle white 
women and children on our northern tropical coasts. The matter is not 
fully investigated, and it is quite possible that the wind factor (which 
is rarely recorded in suitable form) may have an ameliorating effect on 
the human organism. We have, however, no valid reason for believing 
our winds to be more beneficial than the winds of these other tropical 
localities. wa Fei : 
An appeal to the readings of the wet bulb thermometer (which were 
long ago installed by the Commonwealth Meteorologist) gives no more — 
favorable results. If we assume that an average monthly reading of 
* Australian Meteorology, 1920, Oxford University. (229 illus.) 
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