arms or bays, Spalding Cove, Port Lincoln proper, and Boston Bay. But these harbours, viewed with so much admiration by seamen, are silent; no busy population labours on the shores, a few scattered flocks and herds are all that the mainland supports; and the allotments, which were competed for so eagerly in the years of land, mania, are left to nature and a few wandering cattle.
On entering Port Lincoln, a white obelisk, on the summit of a hill, may be seen, which bears the following inscription by Sir John and Lady Franklin:—
THIS PLACE,
FROM WHICH THE GULP AND ITS SHORES WERE FIRST SURVEYED,
ON 26 FEB., 1802, BY
MATTHEW FLINDERS, R.N.,
COMMANDER OF H.M.S. "INVESTIGATOR,"
AND THE DISCOVERER OF THE COUNTRY NOW CALLED
SOUTH AUSTRALIA,
WAS, ON 12 JANUARY, 1841, WITH THE SANCTION OF
LIEUT.-COL. GAWLER, K.H.,
THEN GOVERNOR OF THE COUNTRY,
SET APART FOR, AND IN THE FIRST YEAR OF THE GOVERNMENT OF
CAPTAIN G. GREY,
ADORNED WITH, THIS MONUMENT,
TO THE PERPETUAL MEMORY OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS NAVIGATOR,
HIS HONOURED COMMANDER,[1]
BY
JOHN FRANKLIN, CAPTAIN, R.N., K.C.H., R.R.,
LIEUT.-GOVERNOR OF VAN DIEMEN'S LAND.
To pursue the coast line of the province of Victoria to 132 of E. longitude, where it ends in a desert, would be useless, as no rivers or harbours break the line of this almost uninhabited coast.
Equally absurd would it be to state—as South Australian advocates who do not know the value of truth frequently do—that South Australia contains an area of 300,000 square miles, or nearly twenty millions of acres, without adding that a very large proportion of this vast space is occupied by stony deserts and lakes of mud. Nevertheless, enough of land remains admirably fertile and well watered to support a large population, much larger than is likely to occupy it for a long series of years. In the most inhospitable regions, copper, lead, silver, and iron have been found; and there is no reason to doubt that gold will eventually be discovered.
The district in a north-westerly direction, between Port Lincoln and Streaky Bay, has been but imperfectly explored, and, with the
- ↑ Sir John Franklin served under Flinders in the Terra Australis Voyage of Discovery.
