region, over which the silence of the grave seemed to reign, and when he reached the lower plains and was approaching that part of the river where the fine town of Narrandera now stands, he found the soil to be "so loose and rotten" that it was almost impossible to make any progress. He therefore sent his land equipage back to Sydney and proceeded on his journey by boat.

Although I can speak only of the New South Wales plains from personal experience, the evidence of other explorers proves that the plains in the other parts of the Australian continent are very similar in character to those of the Murray delta. E. J. Eyre's descriptions of the land in Eyre's Peninsula, South Australia, and inland along the Great Australian Bight to Western Australia, were very similar to those given of the New South Wales plains by Oxley, Mitchell, Sturt, and others. The principal difference, I think, was that the plains of the Murray delta were the largest, and contained the deepest deposits of sedimentary matter in the continent. It is unnecessary to refer to the journals of M'Douall Stuart, Burke and Wills, Leichhardt, Sir John and Alexander Forrest, and other explorers. They all tell the same story of some beautiful, well-grassed country in the mountainous parts, with dreary, unoccupied, waterless wastes of desert stretching away as far as the eye can reach beyond the line of mountains. Ernest Giles, who crossed the continent from east to west, speaking of Captain

Sturt, says:—

He described the whole region as a desert, and he seems to have been haunted by the notion that he had got into and was surrounded by a wilderness the like of which no human being had ever seen or heard of before. His whole narrative is a tale of suffering . . . and he says at the furthest point he had attained . . . about forty-five miles from

Eyre's creek, now a watering-place for stock in Queensland: "Halted at sunset in a country such as I verily believe has no parallel upon the earth's surface, and one that was terrible in its aspect."

by the fact that what we now call excellent sheep and cattle country, appeared to him like a desert because his comparisons were made with the best alluvial lands he had left near the coast.1

It will be curious as well as instructive to compare this opinion on Sturt's report with what Mr. Giles himself says of the Great Victoria Desert in western Australia:

Although the region was all a plain, no views of any extent could be obtained, undulations at various distances apart, as the country still rolled on in endless just as in the scrubs. It was evident that the regions we were traversing were utterly waterless; in all the distance we had come in ten days, no spot had been found where water could lodge. It was totally uninhabited by either man or animal, not a track of a single marsupial, emu, or wild dog, was to be seen; we seemed to have penetrated into a region utterly unknown to man, and as utterly forsaken by God.

The consensus of opinion as to the dreary, barren appearance of the plains of Australia, by those who first saw them in all parts of the country, is remarkable, and the more so as we know that these plains, which lie nearest to the settled coast districts, are now talked of as the future granary of Australia, the soil which might, when the proposed irrigation schemes are completed, grow wheat enough for the

world. But what is it that has caused this vast change in the plains of the Murray delta? Simply, I think, the trampling of sheep and cattle, and if this is correct, an examination of the plains which have not yet been trampled down may afford some idea of the vast amount of work performed unconsciously by animals in preparing the land, not merely for the use of man, but for the support of vegetation. The late C. S. Wilkinson, F.G.S., was of opinion that a range of mountains once stretched across Australia from east to west, or from somewhere about the centre of the Blue Mountains on the

1 Australia Twice Traversed, 1872-76. ByErnest Giles. Introduction, page xxv.

east to the western coast. This range has almost entirely disappeared by denudation. The material of which this range was composed has been slowly carried away by flood waters and deposited as sediment over vast areas, which now form the great plains in various parts of the continent. In other lands where similar deposits were formed, they were trampled down and consolidated, stratum by stratum, by herds of elephants, camels, llama, buffalo, bison, oxen, sheep, deer, and other highly gregarious animals. In Australia the kangaroo was incapable of performing a similar work. The kangaroo is not gregarious to the same extent as the sheep or deer. Out on the plains only four or five are seen together even now. Before the advent of the white man with his flocks and herds the kangaroo only ranged in the neighborhood of permanent water where the land was firm enough to support him. No doubt, when he was driven out on the rotten ground by dog or man, the great bird-like claw on his hind legs afforded a better support than the hoof of the sheep or bullock. The great strength capable of being exerted in the hind leg of a kangaroo would, also, enable him to extricate himself from a bog more easily than animals of a higher type of development. His short fore paws would be useful in "clawing" himself along over rotten ground. But kangaroos do not follow each other and make tracks, and this, I think, is how the sedimentary deposits of the Ganges, the Nile, the Amazon, the Mississippi, and other deltas, have been principally consolidated and compacted. It is impossible for any one, I think, to realize how very lightly sediment can be deposited by water without having seen land which has never been trodden upon. On the back blocks, which were unoccupied when I first went out on the plains, I have thrust a walking-stick its full length into what looked like the solid earth, and that without using any great degree of strength. The general experience among the bushmen was, that any sandy looking land where no grass

grew was rotten, and to be avoided. A horse, bullock, or sheep, which stepped on this land, sunk up to his belly at once and had great difficulty in struggling out. Sheep, indeed, when full woolled were powerless in rotten ground, and each one had to be lifted out. I was informed that when the plains were first taken up by the squatters large numbers of sheep were smothered in the rotten soil. When I went on the plains there was no rotten land within twenty miles of the river, but further back than this I have more than once had my horse sink down suddenly or plunge in up to the shoulders as described by Oxley. When the country was in this condition I do not think it was flooded. The flood waters which came down from the mountains spread out on either side of the river, but they sunk through the porous earth and left their sediment resting lightly on the top. It was not until the whole surface of the plains had been thoroughly puddled by the hoofs of sheep and cattle that the huge floods now so common in these rivers of western New South Wales could occur. The flood waters, finding no restingplace on the surface, sunk into underground reservoirs, where they can be reached by wells or bores. In the "Report of the Royal Commission on the Conservations of Water," published by the Land Department of New South Wales in 1885, Lake Urana is spoken of as a permanent sheet of water covering about twenty-one square miles. In 1861 it was known among the settlers as the "Dry Lake." I may mention this as an illustration of the effect of the trampling of large herds of cattle and sheep, and I have no doubt that the dry plains of western Australia, which are described in almost identical words by explorers now to those used by Oxley, Mitchell, and Sturt, of the delta of the Murray, will sooner or later be consolidated in a similar manner. I wish to suggest, however, that an examination of these plains by scientific experts before they lose their original characteristics will be very valuable. Hitherto the geolo

gists have been contented to follow in the wake of settlement which has, in the first instance, been confined to the high lands near the coast, and very little notice has been taken of the plains. No animals, no fossils, and very little vegetation, have been found on the plains, but it is just because they produce nothing in their original condition and become fruitful and fertile later that they require to be reported on. When Mr. F. A. Weld was governor of western Australia, a visitor remarked to him on the sandy nature of the soil. "Yes," replied the governor; "but it is sand that will grow anything if it gets plenty of water." reports inform us that the government of western Australia is boring for fresh water at Coolgardie and elsewhere, and that it has been found beneath the dry salt lakes on the surface. In connection with this underground water, the report previously quoted, remarks:

ocean.

Recent

We cannot tell how far it does really extend to the south, but I have no doubt the underground water escapes into the That is proved by the underground channels which exist in the Mount Gambier distrct, where the water is said to run at the rate of from four to five miles an hour. . . . The late marine formation which underlies the alluvial deposits... contain abundance of water at depths varying from two hundred to five hundred feet. As, however, the overlying fluviatile deposits of this region are generally porous, it is not to be anticipated that water from the miocene beds will rise to the surface. . . . The subsoil 1 C. S. Wilkinson's evidence-Royal Commission on Water Conservation. Sydney. 1885.

is largely composed of impermeable clay, and no better holding ground for water could be desired. In case of newly excavated dams, from which water is found to soak away rapidly, pastoralists find that they may be easily puddled by the trampling of sheep, and in the second year form perfectly good holding ground.

But twenty years earlier strong doubts were expressed as to whether the surface could ever be made to hold water, and it was not until the subsoil of impermeable clay had been compacted and consolidated, by the galloping of animals, perhaps, that surface dams were constructed successfully. The first water on the "Old Man Fiain" away from the rivers was obtained by well-sinking. Later on, when the surface had been puddled into such a consistency as to afford root-hold for grass, herds of cattle were able to gallop and thus consolidate the lower strata. It is worthy of note that there are no great sandy wastes in Australia like the Sahara of Africa or the Gobi of Asia. Neither are there any alkali or "bad lands," as in North America. The plains of Australia are, from the accounts given of them by explorers in all parts of the continent, singularly alike, and if the plains of northern and western Australia can be consolidated by the trampling of stock, as I believe those of the eastern districts have been, the time is not far distant when the word "desert" may be wiped off the map of Australia, and the true character of its vast plains become more generally understood and appreciated. GEO. E. BOXALL.

Utility of the Eolian Harp.-The Eolian harp has been put to a scientific use. Professor Carl Barus has shown that the sound made by the wind whistling across a fine wire varied with the velocity of the wind. He showed that the velocity of the wind could be computed from the pitch of the note observed in the case of

a given diameter of wire and for a given temperature of the air. With the aid of special microphonic attachments, the sounds could be conveyed through a distance so as to be isolated from the other noises at the place of exposure. By the use of a number of wires the direction of the wind could be determined.

Scientific American.

TO THE BLACKBIRD.

Bird with the saffron bill, Like close-furled crocus bud in early spring,

Thou makest all the bleak and weary wold

Melodiously to ring.

Thy sanctuary gleams like burnished gold; The thin larch copse that fronts the waning sun,

This is the haven that thy soul has won; Its charms are manifold.

Warm on its banks the shortening sunbeams lie,

Its trembling spires are kindled into flames;

And see the pulsing planet that proclaims The night fast drawing nigh.

There, where the shadows yet more closely cling,

Those fluent notes of thine are swift outrolled,

And my pen forgets its way as it hears her patt'ring tread,

While ner prattling treble tones chase the thoughts from out my head.

She is queen and I her slave, one who loves her and obeys,

For she rules her world of home with imperious baby ways.

In she dances, calls me "Dear!" turns the pages of my books, Thrones herself upon my knee, takes my pen with laughing looks,

Makes disorder reign supreme, turns my papers upside down,

Draws me cabalistic signs, safe from fear of any frown,

Crumples all my verses up, pleased to hear the crackling sound,

Makes them into balls and then-flings them all upon the ground.

fold,

again