Australia is a continent not only in name but in fact. Its area,
including Tasmania, is almost 3,000,000 square miles, which is about
the area of the United States exclusive of Alaska, and only about one
fourth less than the area of the continent of Europe. Fully two fifths
of this area lie within the torrid zone, and of the rest, even in
Victoria, the part farthest from the equator, the climate is so warm
that it corresponds with that of Spain, southern France, and Italy.
But over so vast a territory great differences of climate must occur,
and consequently of products also. A general description of the
climate and products of Australia is therefore impossible. Yet there
are several characteristics which appertain to the whole continent.
The chief of these are (1) the great DRYNESS of the ATMOSPHERE--not
merely its lack of rain, but its absolute freedom from moisture; (2)
the remarkable INEQUALITY, or want of regularity, in the RAINFALL.
Occasionally the rainfall is excessive, but a more frequent and
serious cause of trouble is excessive drought. The continent on every
side has a low coast region, where the rainfall is heavier and the
temperature generally hotter than in the corresponding table-land
interior to it. But the vast table-land of the interior has
comparatively little rain, and indeed in some parts of it, especially
in the centre and west, the rainfall is so slight that the country is
practically a desert.
But even when all the desert areas of Australia are excluded from
calculation there still remains in the interior plateau, toward the
east and south, an immense area of country of great fertility and
productiveness. The Murray River alone drains an area of 500,000
square miles, one sixth of the whole continent, a great part of which
is of exceeding richness. In these fertile parts irrigation by
artesian wells has been tried, and always with great success. And it
is thought that almost the whole continent can be regained for
agriculture, or at least for sheep-pasturing, by similar means; for
even in the arid and so-called desert parts of the interior, there is
very little soil that is not really fertile, for all of it is covered
with thick brushwood. Moisture alone is needed to make it bear crops
abundantly. And this dryness of the atmosphere which prevails
throughout the whole continent is not without its compensations. It
renders the climate exceedingly healthful.