AUSTRALIANA –

“Despite its comparatively short history of white settlement, the map of Australia is spattered with the names of towns that are now only a handful of ruins, or less than that, or linger on, each with its once busy streets lined with glassless windows except for those of perhaps half a dozen houses, a store, and a shady pub with decaying veranda…  Some were killed when the gold petered out.  Some languished when lack of rain, and erosion, forced the farmers off the surrounding marginal lands.  And some just died.  IN Ghost Towns of Australia, George Farwell writes of a number of the most colourful – telling of their past glories, the reasons for their decline, and their picturesque decay.”

247 p. illus. 18 cm. #251026