Page:Rambles in Australia (IA ramblesinaustral00grewiala).pdf/279

 resources were practically undiscovered. As for the coastal waters, little more was known of them than had been described by Captain Cook and Lieutenant Flinders. The stretch of smooth water that forms a natural harbour for a thousand miles inside the great barrier reef was unimagined. The northern coast land was believed to be uninhabitable by white men; the interior was supposed to be an almost waterless area of intolerable heat, while experts affirmed that if sheep survived at all beneath the tropical suns of Queensland, they would grow hair instead of wool.

Meanwhile the young Colony throve and prospered, and in 1909 held an exhibition of her products to celebrate the completion of the first half-century of her separate existence. Besides live stock, raised on the rich, indigenous grass crops, which cost nothing except wire fencing, Queensland products include cotton, sugar, butter, cheese, bacon, wheat, maize, potatoes, oranges, pineapples, and other tropical fruits. Her minerals consist of gold, copper, tin, coal, besides gems.

It is, however, Queensland's pastoral industries that are the main source of her wealth, and which form more than half the total value of her exports. The great sheep district is in the