My Fourth Tour a Western. Australia. By Albert Calvert. (Dean
and Son. 75. W. net.)—This is a second edition, published
at a low price quarto volume of three hundred and fifty- sine is a
sine pages, fully and handsomely illustrated, in every way easy to read, and certainly worth reading. Mr. Calvert has written much about Western Australia, its history, progress, and resources. He explains that his previous visits to the Colony were mainly for the purpose of investigating the " business facts" about it, the mining and agricultural prospects, &e. This work has now, he thinks, been sufficiently done. The place of Western Australia is fairly well fixed in public esteem. (The population of the Colony had increased from 29,208 in 1881 to 179,937 in 1900, and its exports from £888,148 in 1892 to £6,985,642 in 1899. Its total area, we may remind our readers, is about eight times that of Great Britain and Ireland, and the proportion of cultivable land is considerable.) Mr. Calvert's fourth tour was made, as he says, for the purpose of collecting personal ;impressions, with the object of interesting and amusing. That object his book should certainly fulfil. There are not a few striking stories, sketches, observations, and notices of men and things in it. Gold- diggers, Chinese, bushrangers, and we know not what other personalities, figure in these pages. The reader who has made Linaself acquainted with the material conditions of the Colony should certainly study its social aspects as here depicted.
Previous page
