We have already seen how, on the constitution of Queensland as a separate State in 1859, the country to the west was left as 25 a detached portion of New South Wales. In 1855, Gregory had crossed what is now the Northern Territory, from the Victoria River in the west to the Flinders River, and so through North Queensland to Brisbane, following the line taken earlier by the explorer Leichhardt, but further inland. At the same time, various explorers had been following up Eyre’s discoveries in South Australia, and miners and shepherds were pushing steadily northwards from Yorke Peninsula along the line of the present railway. In 1859, South Australia offered a prize for the first explorer to cross the continent from south to north, urged on by the proposal to connect Australia with England by a cable which must be landed somewhere on the north coast. A party from Victoria, under Burke, started first, and following roughly the western boundaries of New South Wales and Queensland, came out by way of the Flinders River to the Gulf of Carpentaria. But on their return Burke and Wills perished at Cooper’s Creek of starvation, and only one member of the party was rescued. In 1862, Stuart, for South Australia, succeeded in crossing to the north coast and returning to Adelaide by the route west of Lake Eyre which is now followed by the railway and telegraph. The immediate result was that the Northern Territory became politically part of South Australia, instead of being an annex to New South Wales; but it has recently been transferred to the Commonwealth Government by which it is now administered. By 1872, the telegraph line was completed to Palmerston, the northern capital, on Port Darwin, where the cable is landed. By 1889, the railway from the south had been pushed forward to Oodnadatta, nearly seven hundred miles from Adelaide; while in the north one hundred and fifty miles of line was built southwards. Some day, probably in the near future, the rail will stretch from shore to shore, but there still remains a gap of over a thousand miles. North of Lake Eyre, and on the Tropic, the Territory is crossed by the Macdonell Ranges, running east and west. Then comes a stretch of five hundred miles of sandy plains, with scrub and spinifex, and then the peninsula of Arnhem Land, a low plateau with a considerable rainfall. Right on the coast are mangrove swamps and tropical rainfall, as in North Queensland. Though some of this country is suited to cattle, and gold has also been discovered, progress has not been very rapid, in spite of the importance of the magnificent harbour of Port Darwin. The population consists of a few hundred Europeans, as many Asiatics, mainly Chinese, and some thousands of aborigines.