EXTENT: The greatest length, from Steep Point on the west to Cape Byron on the east, is about 2,400 miles. The greatest breadth, from Wilson Promontory on the south to Cape York on the north, is nearly 2,000 miles. The total area of Australia is nearly 3,000,000 square miles.

The actual area of Australia is computed at 2,944,628 square miles, or 26 times that of Great Britain and Ireland. The largest of its five divisions, Western Australia, has an area of over 1,000,000 square miles, or more than 8 times the size of the United Kingdom; the smallest colony, Victoria, with an area of 87,884 square miles, is nearly as large as Great Britain. New South Wales comprises an area of 309,175 square miles, or 21⁄2 times the size of Great Britain and Ireland. Queensland, with an area of 668,124 square miles, is 51⁄2 times as large as the British Isles, while South Australia, with an area of over 903,425 square miles, is nearly 8 times the size of the mother country, or 15 times as large as England and Wales alone. The five States together are very nearly equal in area to the United States, exclusive of Alaska.

COASTS: Australia is much more solid and unbroken in shape or external contour than Europe-more so, indeed, than any of the other continents, except Africa and South America. The total length of coast-line is estimated at 10,000 miles-an average of 1 mile of coast to every 300 square miles of area.

I

Of the few large indentations which penetrate the coast-line of Australia, but do not materially affect the general solidity of the whole mass of land, the great bight known as the Gulf of Carpentaria, on the north, and the corresponding incurve of the Great Australian Bight, on the south, are by far the most extensive.

Of the smaller inlets, the most noteworthy are Port Phillip, Encounter Bay, the Gulf of St. Vincent, Spencer Gulf, and King George Sound, on the south coast; Géographe Bay, Shark Bay, Exmouth Gulf, and King Sound, on the west coast; Cambridge Gulf, Van Diemen Gulf, and Arnhem Bay, on the north coast; and Princess Charlotte Bay, Halifax Bay, Broad Sound, Hervey Bay, Moreton Bay, Broken Bay, Port Jackson, and Botany Bay, on the east coast.

A large portion of the Australian coast is "ironbound," and much of it is absolutely deficient in any inlets which might afford shelter to shipping, besides being most uninviting in appearance. The shores of the Great Australian Bight, especially, for 600 miles, present nothing but a wearisome stretch of sandy beach, backed by barren cliffs, varying in height from 400 to 600 feet, and absolutely unbroken by a single stream or creek. The west coast, though richer in bights and inlets, is also low and, on the whole, monotonous; but the Pacific coast, and parts of the northern and south-eastern coasts, are comparatively picturesque, with here and there inlets, such as Port Jackson, of surpassing beauty.

The north-eastern coast is skirted by the wonderful Great Barrier Reef, a chain of coral reefs extending southwards from Torres Strait for about 1,200 miles, at a distance of from 10 to 150 miles from the coast, and presenting, throughout its entire extent, only one absolutely safe opening for ships, though broken here and there by many deep channels, through which vessels may pass into or out of the open ocean. Steamers generally take the sheltered channel between the reefs and the coast, but this route requires careful navigation, and

sailing vessels prefer the open ocean route outside the Reef. The navigation. of Torres Strait is also obstructed by coral reefs and sandbanks; here the most frequented channel is the sound in which Thursday Island is situated. This island, which is about the smallest and most central of the Prince of Wales group, is in the direct track of all vessels reaching Australia via Torres Strait, and has an excellent harbour-Port Kennedy-one of the finest in Australia, vessels of the largest tonnage being able to enter and anchor at any state of the tide and in all weathers. Bass Strait in the south, between the Victorian coast and Tasmania, is much frequented by shipping, but its navigation is dangerous. CAPES: The principal capes are Cape York, the most northerly point; Cape Byron, the most easterly; Wilson Promontory, the most southerly; and Steep Point, the most westerly point.

Other notable points on the Australian coasts are Cape Arnhem, on the north; Cape Lévêque and North West Cape, on the west; Cape Naturaliste, and Cape Leeuwin, on the south-west; Cape Catastrophe, Cape Spencer, Cape Jervis, and Cape Otway, on the south; and Cape Howe, Sugar Loaf Point, Point Danger, Sandy Cape, and Cape Flattery, on the east.

ISLANDS: With the single exception of Tasmania, there are no large islands off the coasts of Australia.

The principal are Kangaroo Island, off the coast of South Australia; Stradbroke, Moreton, Great Sandy, and Hinchinbrook Islands, off the east coast of Queensland; Wellesley Islands and Groote Eylandt (Great Island), in the Gulf of Carpentaria; Melville and Bathurst Islands, off the coast of the Northern Territory; and Dirk Hartog Island, at the entrance to Sharks Bay, off the coast of Western Australia.

NATURAL FEATURES: The surface of Australia is distinguished from that of all the other continents in that there are no mountains at all comparable to those of Eurasia, America, or even Africa, while there is only one really large river, and its volume, though swollen by enormous floods during the rains, is generally much inferior to that of streams of equal length in other parts of the world. There are also but few permanent lakes, the largest of them are very shallow, even in the rainy season, and become a series of mere pools in dry weather.

The physical structure of the continent is thus described by the late Rev. J. Tenison-Woods :-"Australia is an immense plateau, with a narrow tract of land sometimes intervening between the edge of this elevated area and the sea. The east side is the highest, averaging about 2,000 feet above the ocean. The west side is not more than 1,000 feet above the same. The north is a little higher. The south side is either level with the ocean, or abuts in cliffs apon the sea, ranging from 300 to 600 feet in height.

"The general character of all the seaward side of the table-land is precipitous, but on the south-east angle of the continent the tabular form disappears, and there is a true cluster of mountains-the Australian Alps-whose highest elevation is a little over 7,000 feet. This group is near the sea (Bass Strait), and to the southward there is another group of almost equally high mountains which forms the island of Tasmania.

"The inland portion of the table-land slopes by a very gradual incline towards a central depression, which is south and east of the true centre of the conti nent. Thus the incline is greater and shorter for the east side of Australia, and it is on this side alone that there is what can be properly termed a river. system.

"The elevation of the west side of Australia being only half that of the east, or even less, and the distance of the central depression being twice as great, there is no drainage towards the interior at all, and whatever water falis from the clouds collects in marshes, which are generally salt.

"The soil on that side of the continent consists generally of disintegrated granite rocks, and is therefore sterile and dry, forming little better than a sandy desert. All the table-land is more or less interrupted by ranges of mountains which do not run for any distance, and are not sufficiently high to give rise to any river-system. Their general direction is north and south, or east and west, and they seem to be quite independent of each other and of the general axis of the continent. The most conspicuous of them is the Flinders Range, which commences at Cape Jervis on the south coast, and continues without interrup tion for five or six hundred miles into the salt lake area, where it abruptly terminates."

. As to the character of the country according to its physical structure, the same writer remarks' that it may be stated generally that the narrow strip which lies between the table-land and the sea is well watered by mountain streams, and that the alluvial land in the neighbourhood of these channels is rich and fertile. On the table-land, where the mountains are not too rocky and rugged, the soil includes some fertile areas; but this is generally on the volcanic strata, which are fortunately of wide extent. The lands of the interior are, as a rule, poor, except in the river valleys, and towards the central basins of the continent they are in all respects like the Sahara or the table-lands and prairie Lands of North America.

The State of Victoria is better suited with regard to its lands than any othe. It is well watered, and has a large share of the fertile basaltic areas between the table land and the sea, while the portions of the table-land itself which fall to its inheritance are rich in volcanic tracts.

The State of South Australia may be said to be, as far as the richness of its lands is concernea, confined to the valleys and slopes of the Flinders Range, and as this is about 500 miles long and of gentle elevation, the tracts available for agriculture are considerable. Towards the north of a line parallel with the head of St. Vincent's Gulf, the rainfall is small and uncertain, which renders both agricultural and pastoral enterprises subject to great losses from drought.

New South Wales and Queensland are in the same position relatively to the table-land. The capitals of these States are built on the slopes between the table-land and the sea. Portions of the upper part of the high lands included in both colonies are volcanic areas of some richness, but the lower lands are poor and sterile, except in the river valleys, and these are very numerous in both colonies.

The interior of Australia is not, however, doomed to perpetual sterility, inas much as "the actual amount of the rainfall on the interior slopes must be largely in ex cess of the drainage by the rivers, and a great portion therefore soaks into the ground and drains along the incline towards the interior. On this account, and the structure of the rocks, the central basin must be especially favourable for the formation of artesian wells." Many such wells have been already sunk with the most gratifying results, and in this way, as well as by irrigation from running streams, large areas, otherwise barren and unfit for settlement, have been rendered productive, and, in some cases, more so than equally good soil even with an ample rainfall.

1. The teacher should carefully study Mr. Woods's logy of the continent in the Australian Handbook ucid exposition of the physical structure and geo- for 1893, pp. 106-109.

MOUNTAINS: In Australia, as in Southern Africa, the higher grounds run from south to north, at no great distance from the eastern coast. These elevations on the eastern side of Australia form a continuous, though most irregular, cordillera or chain of heights, extending from Cape Howe to Cape York, and known by the general name of the Great Dividing Range.

Various names are applied to the different portions of this long range. The southern portion bears the name of the Australian Alps; further north, the range forms the well-known Blue Mountains, and, still further north, it is known as the Liverpool Range, &c. The Australian Alps are the loftiest part of the chain, and contain the highest of all the Australian Mountains-Mount Kosciusko, which is 7,336 feet in height. Mueller's Peak, the second highest summit in the same group, has a height of 7,268 feet. The picturesque Blue Mountains are much lower, and seldom exceed 3,000 feet, but their highest summit, Mount Beemarang, reaches 4,100 feet. In the Liverpool Range, Oxley's Peak stands conspicuous at a height of 4,500 feet, while still further north, Ben Lomond, in the New England Range, reaches 5,000 feet, and Wooroonooran, in the Bellenden Ker Range, 5,400 feet, and Mount Dalrymple, 4,250 feet, in the coast range of Queensland. All these mountains are below the limit of perpetual snow, but on the south-eastern slopes of the Snowy Ranges, and on the summits of the high peaks of the Australian Alps, snow sometimes lingers throughout the year.

In Victoria, the high lands to the west of the Great Dividing Range culminate in two distinct ranges running north and south, and known as the Grampians and the Pyrenees.

In South Australia, the principal range runs along the eastern side of the Gulf of St. Vincent and Spencer Gulf. It is known in the south as the Mount Lofty Range, and in the north as the Flinders Range. In Eyre's Peninsula, on the western side of Spencer Gulf, is a rugged chain of hills called the Gawler Ranges. North-west of Lake Torrens is Stuart Range, and, further north in the interior, there are other mountains, or rather hills, all of much less elevation than the coast ranges.

The western coasts are also backed by high grounds of moderate elevation, the principal portion of which, known as the Darling Range, runs parallel to the coast at a distance of from 10 to 25 miles. Further north, the coast range bears the names of the Herschel Range and the Victoria Range. Similar elevations adjoin the north-western and northern coasts, but they are insignificant in height, and nowhere exhibit the character of a true mountain-chain.

The Mountains of Tasmania, which are divided into two sections by the valleys of the Tamar and the Derwent, may be regarded as outliers of the great Australian Cordillera. Several peaks rise over 4,000 feet-the culminating point, Cradle Mountain, attaining an elevation of 5,069 feet.

RIVERS: Although a large number of rivers are met with on the coast of Australia, there is but one river-the Murray-which at all approaches the larger streams of other continents.

The chief characteristic of the rivers of Australia is their liability to sudden and violent floods, and too many of them are, unfortunately, mere surfacetorrents, supplied by the rains, which are, over the greater part of the interior, both scanty and irregular. During seasons of drought, they are speedily dried

up under the intense heat of an Australian sun, or converted into a chain of ponds. With the recurrence of the rainy season, vast floods of water are poured through their beds, and huge trunks of trees, masses of rock, and other débris, carried down by the stream, bear witness to the violence of the torrent. The Murray and its chief tributaries are perennial streams, but, although their volume of water undergoes great variation according to the season of drought or rain, they are navigable by river steamers, and the perennial streams are likely to play an important part in the settlement of the interior, now that public attention has been directed to the feasibility of cultivating the soil by means of irrigation. The gradual slope of the plains over which these rivers flow renders it a comparatively easy matter to irrigate large tracts of otherwise uncultivable soil, but which only require a regular supply of water to be rendered capable of grow ing almost all the temperate and sub-tropical plants. 'Where this can be done, the value of the land, so situated that it can be supplied with water in this manner, is always enormously increased. For irrigation has many advan tages. It not only makes the supply of moisture certain, but it increases the yield of crops grown on a certain area of land, especially where the water run on to the land still contains a good deal of the sediment derived from the high grounds; it enables more valuable crops to be grown than those which can be grown without irrigation; and, in a climate like that of Australia, which is warm enough for vegetation all the year round, it enables crops to be grown almost without interruption, one crop following another in close succession; and for all these reasons, in regions where the climate is so dry as to make the growing of grain crops uncertain, land that can be irrigated will support a population ten or twenty times as large as that which can be supported without vegetation."

Strictly speaking, Australia is surrounded by the Pacific and the Indian Cceans, which meet at Torres Strait on the north and at Bass Strait and along the meridian of South-West Cape (146' E.) in Tasmania on the south, and its rivers, with the exception of those in the interior which have no outlet to the sea, belong to one or other of these great ocean basins.

The Australian Section of the Pacific River-System presents the same characteristic features as the South American-in both a continuous cordillera limits the area for river development to a narrow tract between the mountains and the sea. The Australian Alps and their northerly continuation are, of course, insignificant compared with the vast chain of the Andes; still, the streams that enter the Pacific from the latter are shorter and less navigable than those

which descend from the former.

Of the coast streams of Queensland, the principal are the Burdekin, the Fitzroy (formed by the junction of the Mackenzie and the Dawson, with their subsidiary creeks), the Burnett, and the Brisbane, all of which are navigable for steamiers of considerable tonnage for some distance inland. In New South Wales, the coast plain is watered by many noble streams, the largest of which are the Clarence, all these rivers varies greatly, being liable in winter to sudden and violent floods, MacLeay, Manning, Hunter, Hawkesbury, and Shoalhaven. The volume of but they are not altogether worthless for navigation. The Clarence is half-amile wide at its mouth, and is navigable by sea-going steamers for 70 miles; the Hunter and other rivers are also regularly traversed by colonial trading

1. Chisholm.