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[See [page 97].
After leaving the agricultural belt we pass through a stony country with low hills covered with deadwood and scrub. Yet the map shows us many lakes and pools, and as it is winter we shall find them according to our expectations. Here is a pool of fresh water 47 just after the rains; notice that it even has trees growing round it. Here again is one of the larger 48 lakes; though there seems to be plenty of water here it is really only a flat clay marsh, flooded to the depth of a few inches. Notice the gold mine in the distance. In the hot weather the water in these shallow lakes soon evaporates, often leaving a deposit of salt, so that in place of a sheet of water there is a dreary clay flat covered with stones. On these flats near the shrunken 49 lakes the only vegetation is the salt-bush, with occasional patches of very dry scrub.
There is nothing to attract the settler to country such as this, except gold. There is little water, and that mostly salt or brackish, so that in the early days of the mines it was distilled and sold by the gallon at a high price. There was none available for washing the gold, so that it had to be separated from the earth and rock by the method known as dry-blowing. Now all this has been changed. The mines are supplied with water from far away in the Perth district, where the rainfall is heavy. The whole river is held up at Mundaring, twenty-one miles from Perth, by a 50 gigantic weir, and the water is raised at one pumping station after another, and so carried up and over the plateau to the mining districts. The pipes are laid along the railway and the water is carried for about three hundred and fifty miles, or rather further than from London to Berwick. Without this great work, the Coolgardie region, with its large mining population, could not exist.
Let us now examine the mining. Here we see its primitive methods in the bush. There is probably 51 alluvial gold in the bed of a stream, buried under the surface sand and clay. The stuff is merely hauled up 52 in buckets and thrown out on to the “dump” to await further treatment. Here again, instead of sinking a 53 shaft, the miners have burrowed into the bare hillside. In some places, where water is to be had for a short time after the rains, the miners contrive a primitive 54 washing machine such as we see here. The large trough is merely a hollow log, where the gold-bearing dirt is washed to free it from clay, while the larger stones are picked out. Then it is put into the long trough and sluiced, so that the gold settles among the small stones while the lighter stuff is carried away. The troughs are of wood and the pump is distinctly home made; the water is used again and again until it becomes too thick or evaporates altogether.
Now let us turn to another picture. Here is an up-to-date mine, with machinery and tanks for the 55 chemical extraction of the last atom of gold, after the mass has already been treated in great batteries. 56 There is a deep shaft here with mechanical winding as in a coal mine; but often the gold-bearing quartz is near the surface, and we have an “open cut,” or 57 practically a quarry. Here is one showing the rock at close quarters: the white is the rock which contains 58 the gold, while the dark is the “mullock,” or “country” rock, as the miners style it. There are other goldfields nearer the coast, in the district north-east of Perth. Although near the sea this is a very dry country with much mulga scrub; for, as we go northwards, the scanty rainfall is more and more limited to a very narrow strip along the coast. We have noticed already that the forest zone ends not far north of Perth.
The rest of the interior in this part of the State is a stony desert whose chief product is the spinifex, or porcupine grass, which we have seen before. This often forms an impenetrable scrub, as many explorers have found to their cost. Over very large areas the surface is covered with great boulders; these may be troublesome to the traveller, but they are not without their uses. The storm water runs off them and does not contain salt, so that it can be caught in a tank for 59 the cattle on the stock routes, as we see in this picture.
In the south-east, towards the great Australian Bight, there is a change. There is much limestone country here, with pasture, but the water sinks away through the porous rock. Access, too, is difficult, owing to the cliff barrier stretching for fifteen hundred miles unbroken by any stream or gap. Here is a view 60 of these cliffs; sometimes they come down to the sea, sometimes they lie some distance inland, but they are always present. Here, too, we find the water, which sank into the plateau above, breaking out at the foot 61 of the cliffs and giving us unexpected vegetation.