Page:Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia.djvu/77

 furthest, for the time being, of these settlements, the party had to prepare to encounter in their northerly march fifty miles of the worst desert that was met with during the entire journey.

The interior of Australia, therefore, is a country we can make use of, and there is every reason to believe that the greater part of it will soon and with marvellous rapidity be overspread by pastoral settlements. There is sufficient rainfall and vegetable growth to cover by far the greater part of its wide surface with some kind of soil. Where the quartz, sandstone, and granite come to the surface, there is a poor account of results. These spaces are the scrub and spinifex country, so often recurring upon the explorers' maps, or they are the patches of mere sand and stones, which also often occur, and which in one particular region, where they are the prominent feature of a considerable area, have established a distinction as the "Stony Desert." On the other hand, the basaltic outcrop of rocks and the clay surfaces are the better class of soils. These are ever ready to spring into verdure. They await the providence of the clouds, and are never slow to respond whenever opportunities are showered upon them.

It is not improbable that the country may be found better and less subject to extreme changes further to the westward than McKinlay's or even Stuart's line of march. In that direction lies