It extends straight up through the center of the continent like the middle board in a center-table.

It is 2,000 miles high, from south to north, and about a third as wide.

A wee little spot down in its southeastern corner contains eight or nine-tenths of its population; the other one or two-tenths are elsewhere--as elsewhere as they could be in the United States with all the country between Denver and Chicago, and Canada and the Gulf of Mexico to scatter over.

There is plenty of room.
A telegraph line stretches straight up north through that 2,000 miles of wilderness and desert from Adelaide to Port Darwin on the edge of the upper ocean.

South Australia built the line; and did it in 1871-2 when her population numbered only 185,000.