The bushrangers were only too ready to adopt the vices of Europeans, but they have not been able to withstand the changes wrought by civilization. Their numbers have steadily diminished. In 1880 they were thought to be about eighty thousand in number, but at the close of the century there were scarcely one-fourth as many. Those who remain are for the greater part herdsmen and farm laborers.
Homestead and station in Young district, Australia
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One may not be very far from right in saying that the climate of the habitable part of the continent is the foremost asset of Australia. Certain it is that for healthfulness and the stimulation that creates activity, the climate of Australia is unsurpassed elsewhere in the world. And because of its life-growing and invigorating character it has placed the Australian high in the rank of the world's foremost people.
Climate and soil, too, have made Australia one of the foremost wool-producing countries of the world. Not far from one hundred million dollars' worth of wool and mutton are exported yearly, and much of the wool clip is a fine grade of merino. Gold is another product of Australia. At the close of the century the mines had produced a total of more than one billion dollars' worth of the metal. In round figures, the great Thirst Land, with a population of about four millions, scattered along the edge of a great desert continent, produces enough wealth to sell yearly about three hundred millions of dollars' worth of its products!
The foregoing picture of Australia presents, perhaps, the unpleasant side of Australian life. But this great Thirst Land, so far from being an inhospitable desert, is one of the world's greatest storehouses of wealth.