The pearl-fisheries of which we were speaking give employment to a singular class of laborers, consisting of Malays, Lascars, South Sea Islanders, Australian aborigines, runaway sailors, and West Indian negroes. Formerly the oysters were raised from four or five fathoms' depth solely by divers, but dredging has lately been adopted with good success. The pearl-oyster is a large mollusk, the shell weighing sometimes as much as eight pounds. The divers are paid fair wages, and whatever pearls they find become their perquisites, it being the shells alone that the employer seeks to secure. These, when properly dried and cleansed, he ships to Europe, where they bring an average of five hundred dollars per ton. When diving is depended upon for raising the oysters, a boat is very fully equipped, and the captain, who is the diver, descends in a full set of armor. Air-pumps supply the necessary atmosphere to enable him to remain for half an hour and more under water, during which time he fills the canvas bags which are sent down to him empty and drawn up by those remaining in the boat. Considerable capital is embarked in this business. One enemy the divers have to look out for is the shark. These dreadful creatures do not swarm on the coast of West Australia, but are nevertheless sometimes seen there; and when that is the case the diver signals his crew to draw him to the surface, for though he is armed with a long knife, he could hardly cope with these ravenous monsters in their own element.
The coast-line of the colony is set down as being three thousand miles in length on the Indian Ocean, and some hundreds upon the Southern Ocean. The country is known to be auriferous, but to what extent it is impossible to say. There are two or three hundred miles of railroad here belonging to the Government, and more is under contract to be built in this year of 1888, covering short routes between comparatively populous points. Immigration is encouraged by liberal appropriations, and the population is increasing steadily if not rapidly. The late discovery of gold-fields at the Kimberly district on the Fitzroy River has already turned public attention thither, and settlers and adventurers are sure to follow fast. Government survey has shown that on the territory traversed by the Mary, Margaret, Elvira, and Ord rivers an immense number of gold-bearing quartz-reefs exist, besides surface diggings along the river courses and valley from which "good color," as miners express it, can be got from the sand almost anywhere. Already diggers have gone to work successfully in this region, where it seems the country is well-watered most of the year, and where the Government surveyors say there is no trouble in storing water against possible drought. All these facts simply signify that Perth, the western capital of the colonies, is in the near future to go through the same experience as have Melbourne, Adelaide, Ballarat, and Brisbane, and that she is sure by and by to become like them a great and prosperous city. What is called a "rush" in the colonies has not yet taken place in the Kimberly district, but there is a steady trend of gold-miners thither, and one or two extraordinary "finds" would draw to this part of the country as eager a throng as ever swarmed in New South Wales or Victoria bent upon the same errand.