With the several freaks of nature of which Australasia is the home, and which include such oddities as kiwis and kangaroos, the great Island continent of the group possesses what are probably the most capricious rivers in the world, says "Engineering." Nominaily the continent boasts of magnificent waterways. They are most impressive on the map, and as drawn the length of only two or three of them together run into thousands of miles. But the maps are de-captive. For a large part of the year some of these great waterways dwindle to less than nothing in the way of streams, becoming reduced to a mere series of disconnected puddles. This naturally has handicapped the development! of anything like inland navigation ona large scale, to the great loss of the interior. Yet in spite of every possible obstacle there is a very fair amount of river traffic, but it is attended by risks. The climate is so inconstant that if a boat gets caught by the falling water. it may be years before enough comes down again to float her.
Years ago a steamer pursued a giddy career up the Darling, and branching off up the Paroo, continued its way on beyond the Queensland border. To-day the Paroo is shown on the map as a double-ended river without a mouth and, as often as not, it has nothing, at all to give to the Darling throughout the year. The Darling itself is always up and down. One Year towns on it will be endangered by floods which will stretch as far as the eye can reach. It was said to have attained a idth_ en! one occasion of 43 miles. For years afterwards the same places may be threatened by drought. The navigation season at the most is short; only two months in the! upper reaches, and the boat which' has risked an extra trip, or has ventured a little over far up stream! makes a veritable steeplechase of it with the falling water over bars and banks dividing the deeper serescls, in her anxiety not to get eft.
And when left, of course it! is a question when the water comes again, whether it will float at all, with its open seams. they could not regard Johnson as ne of the greatest figures of English literature there was a sense in which they could regard him as one of the wholesome st figures in the history of British intellect and English speech, and that lay in his total simplicity, reality, and want of affectation; in a word, the heart which underlay his brilliancy and his wit.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.