SOUTH AUSTRALIA. A State of the Com monwealth of Australia occupying the central part of the continent, and bounded on the north by the Timor and Arafura Seas, east by Queens land, New South Wales, and Victoria, south by the Indian Ocean (Great Australian Bight), and west by Western Australia ( Alap: Australia, E 5), It the continent from the north to the south coast in a band for the most part 551) to 700 miles wide, with a length of 1850 miles. Its area is 903„690 square miles. It is divided into South Australia proper and the Northern Territory. the latter having an area of 523,620 square miles.
PnYSICAL FEATURES. The State has no sharply differentiated geographical divisions. It is, as a whole, a vast plain of no great elevation, in some places lying even at or below sea-level. A mountain range but slightly exceeding 3000 feet in its highest summits runs north from Cape Jervis, near Adelaide, and minor ranges or iso lated hills are found in the interior and north ern portions, becoming quite rugged, though not high, in the extreme north. The State has
practically no drainage system. The Murray enters the southeastern corner, but from its mouth in Encounter Bay to the western boundary not a. single river reaches the ocean. In the in terior there are a number of river courses, which are dry for a great part of the year, and even in the wet season are lost in marshes or salt lakes. The extreme northern portion, however, is comparatively well watered. In the great de pression north of Spencer Gulf there are a num ber of large lakes, several of them being 100 miles in length. They arc brackish and shallow, being reduced during the dry season to marshes or mud-flats covered with salt crusts.