both good and abundant.  In addition to these the island possesses an almost inexhaustible store of granite, slate and freestone, well adapted to building purposes.  Sometimes gold is found diffused with wonderful regularity within a few inches of the surface, and so abundant that a single cradleful will yield an ounce of pure gold-dust, the miners readily realizing two or three thousand dollars per diem.  As the grass is torn up, flecks of bright gold are found clinging to the roots, and the clay as it is turned over glitters with the precious dust.  Again, the digger has to search for his treasure deep in the bowels of the earth, or among flinty rocks, or far down beneath a river’s bed, and, it may be, spend weeks or months without realizing a bawbee.  Nothing else is so uncertain as to results as the search for gold, and few vocations are at once so fascinating and so cruelly exacting in regard to health, ease, and even life.

[Illustration:  FERN TREES NEAR HOBART TOWN.]

Among the mines, and amid barren, rugged scenery in Australia, one is often surprised by glimpses of rare beauty—­flowers of wondrous brilliancy, odorless though they be; a gigantic tree twined about by a delicate creeper of exquisite loveliness; or one of those magnificent Australian lakes that show nothing at first but the greenest grass, tall and luxuriant as under the equator; then, as he attempts to ride through the grass, he suddenly finds his horse’s feet growing moist and the spongy vegetation getting fuller and fuller of water, till he discovers that he has entered a lake so wide and deep that his only safety lies in a quick retreat.  This phenomenon is repeated on a small scale all through the jungle-lands, little tufts of grass here and there, known readily by their brighter green, furnishing water enough to meet the wants of a thirsty animal.  A calabash full of pure, sweet water may be expressed from one of these tiny clumps of grassy sponge, as many a weary traveler has attested while roaming over sterile regions destitute alike of wells and springs.

But of surprises there is no end in Australia.  Flowers fascinating to the eye have no smell, but uncouth—­looking shrubs and bushes often fill the air with their delicate aroma; crows look like magpies, and dogs like jackals; four-footed animals hop about on two feet; rivers seem to turn their backs on the sea and run inland; swans are black, and eagles white; some of the parrots have webbed feet; and birds laugh and chatter like human beings, while never a song, or even a chirrup, can be heard from their nests and perches.  So an English lark or nightingale is at a premium; and many a rough miner, with his shaggy beard and uncouth ways, his oaths and lawlessness and crimes, has been known to walk on Sunday evenings to a little English cottage twelve miles out of the settlement just to hear the sweet song of a pet lark.