but New South Wales and Queensland have also yielded a considerable amount, and now Western Australia stands first in respect of annual output. Australia also possesses silver, copper, tin, lead, zinc, antimony, mercury, plumbago, &c., besides coal (now worked to a considerable extent in New South Wales) and iron. Various precious stones are found, as the garnet, ruby, topaz, sapphire, and even the diamond. Of building-stone there are granite, limestone, marble, and sandstone.
The Australian flora presents peculiarities which mark it off by itself in a very decided manner. Many of its most striking features have an unmistakable relation to the general dryness of the climate. The trees and bushes have for the most part a scanty foliage, presenting little surface for evaporation, or thick leathery leaves well fitted to retain moisture. The most widely-spread types of Australian vegetation are the various kinds of gum tree (Eucalyptus), the shea-oak (Casuarīna), the acacia or wattle, the grass tree (Xanthorrhœa), many varieties of Proteaceæ, and a great number of ferns and tree-ferns. Of the gum tree there are found upwards of 150 species, many of which are of great value. Individual specimens of the 'peppermint' (E. amygdalĭna) have been found to measure from 480 to 500 feet in height. As timber trees the most valuable members of this genus are the E. rostrāta (or red gum), E. leucoxўlon, and E. margināta (jarrah), the timber of which is hard, and almost indestructible. A number of the gum trees have deciduous bark. The wattle or acacia includes about 300 species, some of them of considerable economic value, yielding good timber or bark for tanning. The most beautiful and most useful is that known as the golden wattle (A. dealbāta) which in spring is adorned with rich masses of fragrant yellow blossom. Palms—of which there are twenty-four species, all except the coco-palm peculiar to Australia—are confined to the north and east coasts. In the 'scrubs' already mentioned hosts of densely-intertwisted bushes occupy extensive areas. The mallee scrub is formed by a species of dwarf eucalyptus, the mulga scrub by a species of thorny acacia. A plant which covers large areas in the arid regions is the spinifex or porcupine grass, a hard, coarse, and excessively spiny plant, which renders travelling difficult, wounds the feet of horses, and is utterly uneatable by any animal. Other large tracts are occupied by herbs or bushes of a more valuable kind, from their affording fodder. Foremost among those stands the salt-bush (Atriplex nummularia, ord. Chenopodiaceæ). Beautiful flowering plants are numerous. Australia also possesses great numbers of turf-forming grasses, such as the kangaroo-grass (Anthistiria austrālis), which survives even a tolerably-protracted drought. The native fruit trees are few and unimportant, and the same may be said of the plants yielding roots used as food; but exotic fruits and vegetables may now be had in the different colonies in great abundance and of excellent quality. The vine, the olive, and mulberry thrive well, and quantities of wine are now produced. The cereals of Europe and maize are extensively cultivated, and large tracts of country, particularly in Queensland, are under the sugar-cane.
The Australian fauna is almost unique in its character. Its great feature is the nearly total
absence of all the forms of mammalia which abound in the rest of the world, their place being supplied by a great variety of marsupials—these animals being nowhere else found, except in the opossums of America. There are about 110 kinds of marsupials (of which the kangaroo, wombat, bandicoot, and phalangers or opossums, are the best-known varieties), over twenty kinds of bats, a wild dog (the dingo), and a number of rats and mice. Two extraordinary animals, the platypus, or water-mole of the colonist (Ornithorhynchus), and the porcupine ant-eater (Echidna) constitute the lowest order of mammals (Monotremata), and are confined to Australia. Their young are produced from eggs. Australia now possesses a large stock of the domestic animals of Britain, which thrive there remarkably well. The breed of horses is excellent. Horned cattle and sheep are largely bred, the first attaining a great size, while the sheep improve in fleece and their flesh in flavour. There are upwards of 650 different species of birds, the largest being the emu, or Australian ostrich, and a species of cassowary. Peculiar to the country are the black swan, the honey-sucker, the lyre-bird, the brush-turkey, and other mound-building birds, the bower-birds, &c. The parrot tribe preponderates over most other groups of birds in the continent. There are many reptiles, the largest being the alligator, found in some of the northern rivers. There are upwards of sixty different species of snakes, some of which are very venomous. Lizards, frogs, and insects are also numerous in various parts. The seas, rivers, and lagoons abound in fish of numerous varieties, and other aquatic animals, many of them peculiar. Whales and seals frequent the coasts. On the northern coasts are extensive fisheries of trepang, much visited by native traders from the Indian Archipelago. Some animals of European origin, such as the rabbit and the sparrow, have developed into real pests in several of the colonies.
The natives belong to the Australian negro stock, and are sometimes considered the lowest as regards intelligence in the whole human family, though this is doubtful. At the census of 1891 they were believed to number about 60,000, exclusive of those in the unexplored parts. They are of a dark-brown or black colour, with jet-black curly but not woolly hair, of medium size, but inferior muscular development. In the settled parts of the continent they are inoffensive, and rapidly dying out. They have no fixed habitations; in the summer they live almost entirely in the open air, and in the more inclement weather they shelter themselves with bark erections of the rudest construction. They have no cultivation and no domestic animals. Their food consists of such animals as they can kill, and no kind of living creature seems to be rejected, snakes, lizards, frogs, and even insects being eaten, often half raw. They are ignorant of the potter's art.
In their natural condition they wear little or no clothing. They speak a number of different languages or dialects. The women are regarded merely as slaves, and are frequently maltreated. They have no religion; they practise polygamy, and are said sometimes to resort to cannibalism, but only in exceptional circumstances. They are occasionally employed by the settlers in light kinds of work, and as horse-breakers; but they dislike continuous occupation, and soon give it up. The weapons of all the tribes are generally similar, consisting of spears, shields, boomerangs, wooden axes, clubs, and stone hatchets. Of these the boomerang is the most singular, being an invention confined to the Australians.
The five colonies, independently of each other, having declared their desire for a federal union, the Commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed. A Convention, which sat at Adelaide in 1897-8, drafted a Constitution Bill, and on 9th July, 1900, the British Parliament passed the Act to constitute the Commonwealth. There is now a Governor-General and Central or Federal Parliament, consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives, while each State has also (as before) a Governor, an administration, and a Parliament of its own. Each Parliament consists of two Houses corresponding to the British House of Lords and House of Commons, but both Houses are elected by popular vote. Altogether the machinery of government very much resembles that of the home country. The aggregate annual revenue of the colonies is over £30,000,000. The public debt on 30th June, 1917, was £372,517,623. The former militia and volunteer units have been gradually merged into the new Citizen Army started by the Australian Government in 1911. The Government also agreed in the same year to furnish an Australian fleet unit, upon which King George conferred the title of 'Royal Australian Navy'. There is no established Church in the colonies. The denomination which numbers most adherents is the English or Anglican Church, next to which come the Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, and Methodists. Education is well provided for, instruction in the primary schools being in some cases free and compulsory, and the higher education being more and more attended to. There are flourishing universities in Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide. Newspapers are exceedingly numerous, and periodicals of all kinds are abundant. There is as yet no native literature of any distinctive type, but names of Australian writers of ability both in prose and poetry are beginning to be known beyond their own country.
Pastoral and agricultural pursuits and mining are the chief occupations of the people, though manufactures and handicrafts also employ large numbers. The total land area under cultivation was calculated at 13,298,576 acres in 1919-20. For sheep-rearing and the growth of wool the Australian colonies are unrivalled, and while the production of gold has considerably decreased, that of wool is constantly on the increase. The great bulk of the wool exported goes to Britain, which receives over 300,000,000 pounds from the Australian colonies annually (£37,256,915 in 1919-20). The commerce is rapidly extending, and becoming every year more important to Britain, whence the colonists derive their chief supplies of manufactured goods in return for wool, gold, and other produce. Next to wool come gold, tin, copper, wheat, preserved meat, and tallow, hides and skins, cotton, tobacco, sugar, and wine as the most important items of export. The chief imports consist of textile fabrics, haberdashery, and clothing, machinery and metal goods. The aggregate imports in 1920 amounted to about £97,456,899 in value, the exports to £148,564,523. There are upwards of 23,000 miles of railway in actual use or in course of construction, and about 133,000 miles of telegraph. In 1912 the building of the Trans-Australian railway from Port Augusta to Kalgoorlie was commenced. The longest telegraph line is that running northwards across the continent from Adelaide. The two chief routes for mails between Britain and the Australian colonies are by way of the Suez Canal, and by San Francisco across the American continent. The coinage is the same as in the mother country. Banks and banking offices are numerous, including post office or other savings banks for the reception of small sums.