ACROSS AUSTRALIA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1617, 25 February 1903, Page 71 (Supplement)

ACROSS AUSTRALIA.

A GREAT TRANS-CONTINENTAL RAIL WAP SCHEME. (By “Sundowner,” in the “Morning Leader.”) After much hard thinking and serious discussion, the Government of South Australia lias at last decided to. go on with the project of connecting the northern territory with Adelaide by rail. Ihe line from the south already pierces many hundred miles into the interior —as lar as Oodnadatta —and from Port Darwin in the north there is also a line running a considerable distance to the couth. The intervening distance—a matter ofsome 1200 miles —is entirely suitable for railway construction, and it seems a. pity that the Adelaide Government has not been able to carry out the work itself. The land gro.nt system is a convenient one. no doubt, but it is a bad principle to alienate sucka vast area of Crown lands as it is proposed for the purpose. However, needs must where the devil drives; South Australia, just now cannot afford to borrow any more millions for railway schemes, and the Northern Territory—so long a. white elephant to Adelaide —must either hare a railway or bo" c. band on ocl. THE “DEAD HEART” REGION. The new line will, roughly speaking, follow the telegraph line across Gan interior of the continent, on tiie "road, traversed a few years ago by Lord Kintore, when lie drove a trap over from Port Darwin to the Adelaide side, thus making- a record as the only Australian Governor who travelled across the continent from sea to sea. The route passes through wliat is known to geologists as the “great valley” of the Australian continent a depression that extends from S.p oncer’s Gulf, through the region of the lakes, and on to the Daly and Victoria valleys in the far north. It is worthy of note in this connection that the waters of Lake Eyre—named after tlie famous Governor-explorer who died at his Devonshire home a few months ago—are forty fc-ct below the level of the sea. The portion of Australia which the new line will open out is full of interest from the point of view of scientific investigation, and there can be little doubt ..that it Avill also be found to be valuable in its mineral resources. In many places the pastoral qualities of the country have already been tested, but there are no signs of any great fortunes being made so far. The possibilities in this direction, however, are enormous when the railway is completed and some system of water conservation can he adopted. Lake Evro has been aptly described as idle “dead heart” of Australia, for _'t absorbs the drainage of half a .million souaro miles of country and, unlike a Mur ray or other river basin, passes _ on none of its water to areas where it might be useful. HISTORY OF THE BASIN.

Proiessor Gregory, of Melbourne, who has lately been in the interior, and at Ur examining Lake Eyre and its urroandings, m a tie his way across the continent to tlie shores of Carpentaria, got some insight into the history of this curious basin. At the period when the coalfields were being formed in Gippsland the r,.>ie region was slowly sinking beneath trie encroaching sea, which advanced by degrees from the Gulf of Carpentaria as far south as the northern end of Lake Torrens, and extended east to the coast ranges of Queensland. Later, when this sea retreated again, and there was formed, on dry land, the "desert sandstone” above the blue "clays that had been deposited on its floor, a great uplift occurred along the hills oil the Queensland side, and the streams which descended from these on the west went under the blue shales and accumulated as the greatartesian reservoir of Central Australia. These natural changes were followed by a series of earth movements, which in time impressed upon South Australia its main geographical features as we know them to-day—the great valley of Spencer’s Gulf and Lake Torrens, and the mountain system which runs obliquely to the north-west, from the Flinders to the Denison range, and damming back the artesian waters. ENGINEERING POSSIBILITIES. Meanwhile, the process of sinking lias been gradually going on at Lake Eyre, and streams that doubtless in the okl days flowed away from the artesian area of the interior to the Darling valley, or the lower reaches of the Murray, were diverted to tlie central basin. The rainfall was abundant, too, in the old trine, and the country was profusely covered with life in various forms. The petrified trunks of the giant trees now to bo seen

afford good evidence of this, as well aa the remains of the great kangaroos, wombats, crocodiles, and other forms. The disappearance of the animal life was brought about in a curious way. The great inland lake began to'lose water by' evaporation; what was left became salt, and gradually tlie bulk of the surrounding life faded away. But the main practical question now, in view of the projected trans-continental railway, is to what extent the accumulation of artesian water in the Eyre basin and along the great central valley can be utilised. Professor Gregory and other competent authorities apparently see that there is an ocean of water-waste going on in the interior, and obviously it ought to be worth the while of the Adelaide Government to have the whole position thoroughly overhauled by some expert irrigation engineer. If the drainage of half a million square miles is running away to nothing in the sludgy lagoons of Lake Eyre each year it may be possible, in these advanced times, to do something towards retrieving it.