Page:Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia.djvu/75

Rh some guarantee as to the permanent features around at least one great dividing line of the interior country.

We are warranted in concluding that this vast interior Australia is habitable and available enough in its ordinary, or average seasons. The question remains with the occasional seasons of extreme drought. One such occurred, as we have seen, in 1844-5; another, six years later, the Victoria colonists can well remember, at least in its culminating effect on "Black Thursday" the 6th of February, 1851, when many parts of the arid country almost simultaneously took fire. Experience, however, seems to establish the fact that when this changeable interior is visited by such climatic extremes, the entire area is not simultaneously affected. This is a very important consideration for the expanding colonies of the south and east, whose increasing population and property are either clustered close around the precarious area in question, or are placed by successive steps of Colonization further and further within its boundaries. The case practically amounts to this: that when one or two of the colonies suffer, and are, consequently, short in their harvest, the others have escaped, and can make up the deficiency; and, when one section of the pastoral interior may be scorched and destitute of pasturage, the live stock may all still be preserved by a temporary