[Illustration: GYMPIE: No. 1 NORTH ORIENTAL AND GLANMIRE] CHAPTER V. OUR ASSET IN ARTESIAN WATER. Erroneous Judgment of Western Queensland.--Scarcity of Surface Water.--Water Supply Department.--Discovery of Artesian Water in New South Wales.--Prospecting in Queensland.--Difficulties Experienced by Early Borers.--First Artesian Flowing Bore. --Dr. Jack's First Estimate of Artesian Area.--Revised Figures. --Number of Bores and Estimated Flow.--Area Capable of being Irrigated with Artesian Water.--Cost of Boring.--Value of Artesian Water.--Extent of Intake Beds.--Waste of Water. --Necessity for Government Control of Wells.--Value of Water for Irrigation, Consumption, and Motive Power.--Artesian Water a Great National Asset. Fifty years ago the white population of Australia, including Tasmania, scarcely exceeded a million persons. At that time the theory was generally accepted that only a fringe of the coast south of the tropic of Capricorn would be found habitable by a British or European population. The reports of explorers led to the conclusion that the vast inland area of our continent was an irreclaimable arid desert, save when, at long and uncertain intervals, it was ravaged by destructive floods, the water from which, licked up by a fiery sun or absorbed by a porous subsoil, disappeared from the surface with marvellous rapidity. A little more than forty years ago squatting occupation had been pushed towards the interior of the continent with not only rapid strides, but it was held by many explorers with a presumptuous boldness that could only be followed by disaster. So deeply had this conviction been driven into the minds of experienced men that a distinguished Australian explorer, the late Sir A. C. Gregory, declared in his late maturity, little more than ten years ago, that on what is now some of the richest and most productive country in Western Queensland a bandicoot could not live; and on the statement being challenged he said he spoke from personal experience as an explorer after two visits separated by an interval of nine years. The country more particularly so condemned was the well-known pastoral run, Wellshot, a little to the south of Longreach, and one of the largest and finest wool-growing properties in Australia.