How did early white settlers in Australia survive and prosper? Convicts manhandling heavy carts and making roads. Sealing gangs doing it tough on remote islands. Whaleboat crews harpooning their prey. Timber-getters razing vast areas of cedar forest. Woolgrowers experimenting with merino flocks. Shipbuilders and sailors, trailblazers and bullockies. Merchants did a roaring trade in sealskins, whale oil and timber, until there were almost no seals, Whales or cedar trees left. What could they sell to the world that would not be used up so quickly?