With the Jarrah is found the Karri, of much the same character but less durable. It is one of the finest and tallest trees of the Australian forest. Its bark is yellowish white, and peels off, leaving the tree clean, so that the Karri is sometimes called the white gum. The tree sometimes grows to a height of 41 three hundred feet, and is far too large to handle; while even the smaller specimens need a whole team to haul a single log. So that, although there is a very large area of forest land, we can understand that cutting only goes on within easy reach of one of the short branch railway lines running down to the sea. The forests of Western Australia have recently been estimated to contain two hundred and twenty million tons of valuable timber, worth about three hundred million pounds sterling. Where the forest thins out eastward the red gum is one of the most useful trees, as it is spreading and branched, and so gives 42 more shade than the other gum trees. This is important for the stockowner in a dry, hot country. We have already seen something of the agricultural district round York; and we shall find little difference as we follow the railway southwards to Albany, keeping always about a hundred miles from the coast. There are the same wheatfields and sheep and occasional orchards; it is not very different from the country round Perth, except that it is rather cooler as we travel southwards. In the summer, especially on the eastern edge of this belt, it is very dry and parched; but after the winter rains, though there is too little water for trees, the flowers and grasses spring up everywhere, especially everlasting flowers which grow in great profusion, as we see from the picture before 43 us. So we have a coast belt associated with timber, and a parallel belt inland where agriculture is developing along the track of the railway. The southern terminus of the railway is Albany, on 44 King George’s Sound, one of the best harbours of the Australian 45 continent. Albany is a fortified coaling port, and is likely to grow in importance with the organisation of Australian defence in the future. This seems a small corner on the map, yet the area available for agriculture is considerably larger than the total area under cultivation in Great Britain; while beyond it, in the region of lessening rainfall, is a wide belt suited for sheep-raising. Further eastward still, beyond this belt, we enter another type of country. The railway from Northam Junction carries us across the dry country and through Southern Cross to the mining centre of Coolgardie. A little further on, at Kalgoorlie, it turns northward, to end at Laverton, about four hundred miles from Perth and the same distance from the sea to the south. This is the limit of that part of West Australian settlement which is based on gold.