Error was ingrained in the youthful days of middle-aged Australians. Their school-books told them in swinging rhyme that they lived in a world of undiscovered souls, that 'twas Heaven's decree to have these lost souls brought forth; that man should assert his dignity and not allow "brutes" to look upon him. Discoveries are still being made. Heaven's decree is replaced by the decree of wild talkers, the dignity of man is found to be the vanity of a paid politician, and but few of the "brutes" of Australia are left to look down upon anything. But there are some of saving grace who frankly acknowledge shame upon finding how little they really know of their native country.
Young Australians were once taught that Australian trees cast no shade—that the edges of the leaves were presented to the sun to avoid the heat of the cruel luminary; that Australian flowers had no scent, and Australian birds no song; that the stones of Australian cherries grew on the outside of the fruit, that the bees had no sting, and that the dogs did not bark. In those days a gentleman with a military title improved upon the then popular list of contradictions by asserting that in Australia the compass points to the south, the valleys are cold, the mountain-tops warm, the eagles are white, and so on. Many accordingly took their natural science as "Tomlinson" did his God—from a printed book—and that compiled in England. Until they began to investigate they were puzzled by contradictions. The first prompt bee-bite—there are many varieties of Australian bees, some pugnacious and pungent—diverted attention from the school-book romances. It was discovered that thousands of square miles of Australian soil never catch glimpses of the sun in consequence of the impenetrableness of the shade of Australian trees; that the scent of the wattles, the eucalypts, the boronias, the hoyas, the gardenias, the lotus, etc., etc., are among the sweetest and cleanest, most powerful and most varied in the world; that many of the birds of Australia have songs full of melody; that the so-called Australian cherry is no more a cherry than an acorn; that the Australian dog (though "the only true wild dog in the world") is deemed to be a comparatively recent introduction—a new chum of Asiatic origin who entered the glorious constellation of the State something before the era of exclusive legislation—so naturally he does not bark, for barking is an evidence of civilisation; but he soon learns the universal language of the dog.
Many years ago most of this gross and superficial ignorance was brushed away here, though now and again evidence crops up that a good deal yet adheres in the old country. Australian school-books of the present day contain so much that is grossly false and misleading of the natural conditions of certain portions of the Commonwealth as to leave no room to doubt the present duty. We are continually making mutually beneficial discoveries, and may it be granted these efforts be blessed with happy purpose. All is not known yet even in Australia. The number of "observers" who believe that snakes swallow their young in time of danger, and allow them to emerge when it is past, and that the end of the death adder to avoid is the tail, which is fitted with a slightly curved spur, become fewer every year; but we are still sincere in many of the honourable points of ignorance. Some discredit such facts as climbing fish, oysters "growing" on living trees, birds hatching eggs without sitting on them, egg-laying mammals and mammals producing young from eggs within their bodies, plants that sow the seed of continents to be—yet these facts are of everyday occurrence here.
As to climate, will general credence be given to the statement that Dunk Island is more "temperate" than Melbourne? We experience neither the extreme heat nor the extreme cold of the metropolis of Victoria—nearly 2000 miles to the south; we have four or five times the volume of rain, yet a greater number of fine days—days without rain. The general principle that where the rainy days are fewest the amount of rain is greatest, is apt to be forgotten. During 1903 the rainfall of Dunk Island amounted to 153 inches. What is meant (to follow the phrase of Huxley) when one says in technical language that the rainfall of a place was 153 inches for a certain year? Such a statement means simply that if all the rain which fell on any level piece of ground in that place could be collected—none being lost by drying up, none running off the soil and none soaking into it—then at the end of the year it would form a layer covering that piece of ground to the uniform depth of 12 feet 9 inches! An inch of rain signifies 114 tons, or 27,000 gallons per acre!
Let me repeat that in 1903 the rainfall here totalled 153 inches. During the same period the mean rainfall of the State of Victoria was 27.36 inches. In one locality, reputed to be the wettest, 42.11 inches were registered, and occasioned no little surprise. In another Australian state, among the natural advantages of land offered for close settlement, was catalogued an annual rainfall of 18 inches; in another an official inducement of an average rainfall of 27 inches was offered, in yet another 24 inches, with a not too shrewd note that 15 inches of rain was ample.
Some of the denizens of a dry area in Victoria find it hard to credit the simple facts recorded by my rain-gauge. The rainfall for the month of January 1903, on Dunk Island was 26.60 inches, only 0.76 inches short of the mean for the whole year in Victoria, and more than twice the quantity that blessed the thirsty soil in some parts of Queensland. The total rainfall of the wettest locality in Victoria was 42.11 inches. Here the month of March alone gave 44.90 inches.
At Thargomindah (South-Western Queensland) 11.37 inches were registered for 1903, and 9.82 inches for 1904. The two driest months of Dunk Island fell short by a trifle more than 2 inches of the total fall for 1904 for that parched area. At Eulolo (Mid-Western Queensland) 13.68 inches represented the sum of the blessing for 1903, while during 24 hours in December that year the Dunk Island gauge registered just 11 inches, and that quantity was 3 inches more than could he spared for Eulolo for the whole of 1904.
During 1904 Cape Otway Forest (Victoria), registered 40.92 inches, Townsville (North Queensland) 26.32 inches, and Dunk Island—only 110 miles from Townsville—94.14 inches. That was a dry year with us. What is known in this neighbourhood as "the drought year" gave just 60 inches. Plants unaccustomed to such hardship, and therefore devoid of inherent powers of resistance, then gave way with pitiful lack of resource, and as speedily recovered on the return of normal conditions. Yet the 60 inches of "the drought year" represented more than twice the average rainfall of London.
The average annual rainfall for the State of Victoria during the last thirty years has been 26.68 inches. Townsville (considered to be one of the driest places on the coast of North Queensland) averaged 45.54 inches during the period of thirty-four years.
Twenty-five miles further north the rainfall for 1904 exceeded that of Dunk Island by 6 inches more than the average rainfall of the upper basin of the Thames Valley, which is given as 28 inches. Australia is big—there is bigness in our differences.