Page:The Coming Colony Mennell 1892.djvu/165

 by sinking at about 12 feet; and the average rainfall is about 31 inches; and the average cost of clearing is from £2 to £8 per acre.

—The agricultural land of our Northern Districts is all the belt of country comprised in the Districts of Northampton, Sandsprings, Greenough, Dongara, and the Upper Irwin up to Strawberry. Beyond Strawberry comes that other belt of untested country, previously alluded to. Confining, for the purposes of this Commission, a description to those portions known as Greenough, Dongara, and Upper Irwin, Greenough embraces two distinct belts of rich and almost level formation, called the Front and Back Flats: the Front Flats, commencing a few miles from Geraldton, and extending along the coast just behind the sea-coast in the direction of Dongara for about 25 miles, vary in width, say, from three-quarters of a mile wide to two miles; the Back Flats run parallel with the Front Flats, divided only by a low range of lime­ stone formation, and contain rather a larger area as a whole. The existence of these two belts of country, which may be classed among the richest agricultural land in all Australia, is a startling and novel feature in our geography. The nature of the soil in these two belts of flat country is similar in many respects. The whole is generally impregnated with lime, is of a rich loan1y character, of great depth and varies in quality only by portions being lighter and more friable than the other, and the whole more or less at long intervals subject to inundation, and was probably, a century ago, a series of lakes or estuaries. Water is obtained after cutting through the lower strata of limestone at depths of from 40 feet to 70 feet; and cost of clearing, from £2 to £4 per acre. The rainfall at Northampton is 21·09 inches; Newmerracarra, 19·77 inches; Geraldton, 18·53 inches.

The district of Dongara and Upper Irwin is entirely different in its character from the Greenough Flats, consisting of a belt of country on the banks of the Irwin River, hemmed in by sand plains on either side, varying in width, along the tortuous course of the stream, from a quarter of a mile to scarcely two miles wide. The quality of the soil is a rich, stiff, loam, getting lighter in quality as it reaches the edge of the sand plains, watered by the river; and water is obtained by sinking at depths varying from 25 feet to 70 feet. Rainfall.—Dongara, 17·12 inches. Cost of clearing, from £2 to £5 per acre.

This closes the general description of the agricultural districts, embracing, as it does, the whole of that portion of the colony under