Page:Melbourne and Mars.djvu/59

Rh got a mountain and a rich and fertile plain where for ages there was such a waste?' asked I.

'We get it from the brain of a great engineer. A man planned the work and it took nearly two hundred years to accomplish. The reclaimed land is called the Central Plain, but the mountain on which we stand is called Mount Weston, after John Weston, who designed the whole work. The land is nearly one-twentieth of the land surface of the planet. Two beautiful rivers drain it, and the great trunk line on which we travelled yesterday runs right through it. It is, as you see, an agricultural land, and thinly populated. We do not put city areas upon built lands. Thinly populated as it is, however, no less than fifty branch lines from North and South are required for its produce and passengers. The lines are part of the plan. The engineer seemed to know what would be wanted from the beginning.'

'From whence did he get all the material used?'

'He got all of it from the underground lines. Of these a dozen were being pushed forward at once, and some of the material has travelled over four thousand miles. The first survey occupied Weston and a staff of one hundred men for five years. To begin with an air boat could not cross, because one could not carry electricity enough. Cables had to be laid and stations erected, and the course of the two rivers was partly determined by the lagoons; they were found in some places to form chains and flow into each other. They flow into the sea with currents a quarter of a mile wide and twenty feet deep, and they are navigable along their whole length, and are much used in the carriage of building material and heavy traffic.'

'Weston worked on a definite plan. In draining and filling he took care not to bury any soil or material that could enrich the soil. As he brought up the level of the dry land he covered it with soil and made it into farms, and built houses on piles. In many places he put sleeping rooms in the air on piles twenty feet high, for he found that by getting so far above ground that many people ceased to suffer from malarial complaints.'

'As a result of his wise action his army of workers soon grew food enough to sustain them, and as they pushed ever forward with their enterprise they left rich and cultivated land behind them. This was rapidly disposed of and rendered ever more and more fertile by good management.'

'And the mountain; it also must have been built?'

'True. When the plain was well nigh finished the engineers found that they would have some millions of yards of material to spare, and they decided to pile it in one vast heap and to plant the heap with forest trees, and make it into an elevated reserve and a monument of the engineer for ever. The plough has never to touch its surface, and the small and harmless animals and birds that congregate here have never to be hunted unless they become too numerous and damage the crops on the plain. As for the evil beasts that dwelt in the swamp they are all exterminated.'