The gold-bearing country is in two bands, running north and south, through Southern Cross and Kalgoorlie; and we find quite a large population in the midst of waterless country. Here is a view of Kalgoorlie, a prosperous-looking town, in spite of 46 its arid surroundings. This is the region of Australia where gold-mining has developed most rapidly in recent years. It is very different from Ballarat or the Queensland mines, where the gold lies in the midst of a fertile agricultural country, easily reached from the sea. [Illustration: _Copyright._) (_See page 90._ MILFORD SOUND.] [Illustration: _Copyright._) (_See page 91._ DUNEDIN.] [Illustration: _Copyright._) (_See page 94._ LOOKING UP TASMAN GLACIER.] [Illustration: _Copyright._) (_See page 97._ THE AVON: CHRISTCHURCH.] After leaving the agricultural belt we pass through a stony country with low hills covered with deadwood and scrub. Yet the map shows us many lakes and pools, and as it is winter we shall find them according to our expectations. Here is a pool of fresh 47 water just after the rains; notice that it even has trees growing round it. Here again is one of the larger lakes; though there 48 seems to be plenty of water here it is really only a flat clay marsh, flooded to the depth of a few inches. Notice the gold mine in the distance. In the hot weather the water in these shallow lakes soon evaporates, often leaving a deposit of salt, so that in place of a sheet of water there is a dreary clay flat covered with stones. On these flats near the shrunken lakes the only 49 vegetation is the salt-bush, with occasional patches of very dry scrub. There is nothing to attract the settler to country such as this, except gold. There is little water, and that mostly salt or brackish, so that in the early days of the mines it was distilled and sold by the gallon at a high price. There was none available for washing the gold, so that it had to be separated from the earth and rock by the method known as dry-blowing. Now all this has been changed. The mines are supplied with water from far away in the Perth district, where the rainfall is heavy. The whole river is held up at Mundaring, twenty-one miles from Perth, by 50 a gigantic weir, and the water is raised at one pumping station after another, and so carried up and over the plateau to the mining districts. The pipes are laid along the railway and the water is carried for about three hundred and fifty miles, or rather further than from London to Berwick. Without this great work, the Coolgardie region, with its large mining population, could not exist.