Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/549

Rh the other day when we were talking on this very subject. He said that when he was a boy the maps of the school geographies had a 'Great American Desert' between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, and another desert between the Rocky Mountains and the, Sierra Nevadas. But as civilization has pushed westward the desert disappeared, and all that region once supposed to be uninhabitable is now occupied as cattle-pastures, and thousands of farms have been established and are doing well where fifty years ago it was thought nothing could be made to grow. Quite likely it will be the same with the great Australian desert, but as my paragraph represents the present state of things we will let it remain as it is."

The conversation then turned to the aboriginals who had been mentioned in Mr. Favenc's address. Fred asked Frank if he had ascertained how many there were at present in South Australia, and how they lived.

"Yes," was the reply, "and here is what I've learned. When the colony was settled, in 1836, there were estimated to be twelve thousand