parts of the world from the same periods. Once, however, during the mesozoic time, Australia must have been isolated as a continent by itself. This plainly appears during the tertiary period; during this, most part of Australia seems to have remained an independent continent. This also was the case during the quaternary period or the geological present time.

Australia has no active volcanoes, but extinct ones are found in several places. Some of those that are to be found in Victoria must be considered to have had eruptions not long before the historical time.

This "Land of the Dawning," which, generally speaking, remains now as it was during the tertiary period, shows a corresponding primitive and peculiar fauna, as well as flora, with its proteacea, leafless casuarina-trees and acacias, which remind you of the extinct vegetation of the older tertiary period. The greater part of the Australian mammals consist of the curious marsupials which belong to the oldest and lowest organized of all known mammals, and which have, without doubt, remained from an earlier geological period, during which they also lived in Europe. Here are also found the two most remarkable mammals on the globe: the duckbill (ornithorhynchus anatinus) and the spiny anteater (echidna), which, it has lately been proved, lay eggs and afterwards suckle the young. Among the birds. the country has some peculiar species (megapodidae), the only ones upon the earth, which do not themselves hatch their eggs, but, like the reptiles, bury them in hot sand or in hills of earth, the fermenting ingredients of which, by producing heat, hatch the eggs.

The class of mammals gives the Australian fauna its

characteristic appearance. Imagine a continent almost of the size of Europe without any mammals, except marsupials, besides some bats, rats and mice. There are none of those species from which our domestic animals have been developed.

The marsupials appear in some parts of Australia in countless numbers, and are very destructive to the grass. From 1880 to 1885 the Government of Queensland paid premiums for five million heads of the larger marsupials. I undertook two journeys of importance during my stay in Australia. The first one was to the interior of Queensland, from Rockhampton, under the Tropic of Capricorn, about 800 miles west. Near the coast the climate is naturally more moist and the landscape sometimes even approaching to the picturesque. But as a rule the Australian landscape is more grotesque than beautiful, and it has a marked look of melancholy about it.

The farther you go west the more does the whole scenery assume a dry aspect. In western Queensland they think nothing of it if they have no rain for eight or ten months. The grass is gray almost all the year round, but still this undulating country, the socalled downs, forms splendid pastures for hundreds of thousands of sheep and cattle; and the squatters store the rain-water in dams, and thus preserve it for one and even two years. Western Queensland, near Diamantina River, is one of the hottest places in the whole of Australia, the thermometer having registered 125° in the shade for three consecutive days. The air is so dry that perspiration is not felt. The soil is a rich, chocolatecolored deposit of clay, and it is a general belief that the large western country will in a short time, by means

of artificial irrigation, become a great wheat-producing country. Artesian wells have recently been bored in several places. In 1887, e. g., water as clear as crystal and perfectly fresh was struck at a depth of 690 fathoms. In the 10-inch pipe it rushed up like a fountain, throwing up water at an estimate of 200,000 gallons a day. This was about 500 miles from the coast.

The other and by far the most interesting journey was to the delightful tropical regions of Northern Queensland.

In Northern Queensland the Dividing Range attains a height of 2,400 feet, and in consequence of the heat and moist climate the mountains are covered with dense brushwood-which the Australians call scrub-of enormous extent and great luxuriance, a complete contrast to the ordinary Australian landscape, with its monotonous plains and its melancholy white-stemmed gum-trees (eucalyptus) and acacias scattered here and there. There are all sorts of trees and bushes in astounding number. Most noticeable is the Australian vine (Calamus Australis), twining along the trees, for hundreds of feet, through the forest, and sometimes rising in gigantic coils that make all passage impossible. One species of palm the colonists call by the not very poetic name of "Lawyer palm," because its sharp thorns tear one's clothes and draw blood from the skin. No less unpleasant is a huge stinging-nettle (Laportca moroides), whose beautiful heart-shaped leaves sting painfully. So poisonous are these leaves that their mere movement produces sneezing; whilst any one stung by them soon experiences an acute pain all up the arm as far as the lymphatic glands in the arm-pit. This is followed by dis

turbed sleep at night, but no further unpleasant effects worth mentioning supervene. The antidote to this plant is, strange to say, always found in its immediate vicinity, in the same way as the kusso plant is found in Abyssinia, the native country of the tape-worm. That antidote is the sap of the Colocasia macrorhiza. Besides these troublesome plants, a large number of very useful and beautiful ones are met with in these regions, such as the fan-palm, the common Australian palm, the banana, etc. In the higher mountain regions, the gigantic tree-ferns grow in great splendor, their huge leaves broadening out over the transparent water of the brooks that trickle at their feet.

The water-supply of these mountain regions contrasts very strongly with the dryness of the Australian soil elsewhere. Here are any number of brooks, that now run into the most beautiful waterfalls, now flow into stately rivers. These rivers have, of necessity, a comparatively short course, but they carry for the most part a vast volume of water and they are accompanied by a dense undergrowth of jungle that extends to their very mouth. The soil in this region-along the rivers -is generally of incomparable fertility, and if the undergrowth is rooted up by the white settler, or more accurately, by his dependents, the Kanakas, the sugarcane does wonderfully well. Tobacco and coffee also thrive well in this moist climate; only thus far, the right sort of tobacco to cultivate has not yet been found. In like manner, the cinchona plant, rice, arrowroot, everywhere thrive well in this region, but none of these plants is as yet cultivated, except on a very small scale.

The white settlers remain in the lowlands and never go up into the thickets of the mountain districts. Here, in natural conditions as yet unchanged, dwell the black aborigines, whom no white man cares to disturb. For they can find him neither gold, nor diamonds, nor anything else that would tempt him to encounter the difficulties of a journey to their haunts. I had, however, long wished to study these savages, the Australian aborigines, the lowest of the human race, in their actual conditions of life. For the ethnological student no phase of human life is as interesting as the most primitive one. And as you can get no reliable knowledge of a people except by living among them, so I made up my mind to live with the savages in their huts. A further inducement to risk the dangers connected with such a stay was my belief that by their help I could get many specimens of Australian fauna, which I should in no other way be able to procure.

Of course, I could not at once go and live with them, but had to work my way gradually. I had, then, been in Australia more than a year and, of course, had acquired some experience as to how to proceed with them. I first began to associate with the so-called civilized blacks, and through them, by degrees, became acquainted with other tribes, until at last, I lived with natives who were in the most primitive state of life and had never come into contact with a white man. By civilized blacks we generally understand such of the natives as have to some degree been affected by European culture; but the extent of their civilization may be briefly summed up thus-that a civilized black knows he will be shot dead if he kills a European, is