The policy of the Victorian Government has been to open up the interior by means of railways, so that railway communication should keep pace with settlement, be the latter ever so rapid. The consequence is that railways extend to the most remote parts of the colony.

The Victorian railways include four systems, all radiating from Melbourne, (1) the Northern System, extending from MELBOURNE to ECHUCA, a distance of 156 miles; (2) the North-Eastern System, from MELBOURNE to WODONGA (187 miles), which is connected by a bridge across the Murray with Albury, the terminus of the New South Wales railway to Sydney (3) the Eastern System, from MELBOURNE via SALE to BAIRNSDALE; and (4) the Western System, from Melbourne via GEELONG, BALLARAT, ARARAT, and STAWELL to SERVICETON, where a connection is made with the South Australian railway to Adelaide. The main lines have each several branches, and there are also Suburban Lines from Melbourne to Williamstown, Port Melbourne, Sandringham, St. Kilda, &c. 2

GOVERNMENT: Victoria possesses responsible government. The Governor is appointed by the Crown, and there are two Houses of Parliament.

The Victorian Parliament consists of a Legislative Council of 48 members, and a Legislative Assembly of 95 members. The latter are elected by universal suffrage. The Revenue and Expenditure each amount to over 7 millions. The Public Debt is over 51% millions, nearly the whole of which has been incurred in the construction of railways, water-works, school buildings, and other public works.

For the defence of the colony there is a small but efficient navy, and a considerable military land force.

Education is amply provided for in the numerous State primary schools, and by private schools, technical colleges, and the three colleges affiliated to the University of Melbourne. The instruction given in the State schools is strictly secular, and so far compulsory and free. Practically all the children of school age are under instruction. There are public libraries or institutes in all the larger towns. There is no State Church in Victoria.

DIVISIONS: Victoria is divided into 4 districts and 37 counties. The districts are Gippsland, in the south-east; the Murray, in the north-east ; Wimmera, in the north-west; and Loddon, in the north-central part of the colony.

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TOWNS: More than one-half of the people of Victoria live in towns. Of the 60 cities, towns, and boroughs, the largest are Melbourne, Ballarat, Bendigo, and Geelong.

MELBOURNE, the capital of Victoria, and the most important and popu. lous commercial centre in the Southern Hemisphere, is situated on the Yarra, not far from the shores of Port Phillip Bay, on which stand its lovely suburbs of St. Kilda and Brighton, with Port Melbourne (formerly called Sandridge), its port, and Williamstown, its outport. Melbourne is a well-built and stately

1. There is a double line as far as Bendigo. 2. Over 40 mil ion passengers and 2 million tons of goods are carried yearly on the Victorian rail. ways

3. "Any aggregation of 300 houses can be con. stituted a borough. A borough with a revenue of over £10,000 per annum becomes a town, and with a revenue of over £20,000 becomes a city."

city, with splendid public buildings, beautiful parks, and charming public gardens. Including its suburbs, Melbourne now has a population of nearly half-a-million. Melbourne is a striking example of what enterprise and wealth can accomplish in a short time. Sixty years ago, no white man bad trodden the ground on which this vast city now stands, and little did the settlers of 1835-Batman and Fawkner-think, when they built their mud huts on the then solitary banks of the Yarra, and surveyed the immense and desolate meadows around them, that in half a lifetime a colossal city would cover them; that the dreary spot, which they bought from the blackfellows for two blankets and a bottle of spirits, would be the site of the ninth largest city in the British Empire, and as its citizens would fain assert, second only in commercial im portance, to the great imperial capital itself.

Other noteworthy towns, besides Melbourne, are Geelong, Bal larat, Ararat, Stawell, and Serviceton, on the Western Railway; Castlemaine, Bendigo, and Echuca, on the Northern Railway; Wodonga, the terminus, and Beechworth on a branch, of the North-Eastern Railway; and Sale and Bairnsdale, on the Eastern Railway. On the coast, to the west of Port Phillip, are Warrnambool, Port Fairy or Belfast, and Portland.

Geelong (23), one of the oldest towns in Victoria and noted as a wool port and for its "tweed" manufacture, stands at the head of Corio Pay, the western arm of Port Phillip Bay. Ballarat (47), one of the most famous gold mining towns in the world, stands on the south side of the Dividing Range, about 74 miles west of Melbourne. The formerly rich alluvial deposits have been worked out, and the gold is now mainl, obtained from the quartz mines, some of which are as deep as some of the coal-pits in England, and have thus to be worked by expensive mac inery. Ararat (4) and Stawell (5) are mining towns and centres for grain and wool, also on the Western Railway,' which connects with the Eastern Railway of South Australia at Serviceton, a border town, 300 miles from Melbourne and about 200 miles from Adelaide. From Ararat a bratch line runs to Portland (2), a seaport on Portland Bay and the oldest town in the state, having been founded in 1834. Forty miles east of Portland is another rising seaport, Port Fairy (2), formerly called Belfast, and now connected by rail with Melbourne. Still further east is the port of Warrnambool (7)-the sca outlet of a rich agricultural and pastoral district,

Castlemaine (10) is an important gold-mining town, and also the centre of a productive agricultural district. It is connected by a branch line of railway with Maryborough (5), another mining and agricultural centre, and by that route, with Ballarat and the western districts. Bendigo or Sandhurst (43), a gold-mining town, famous in the early annals of the state, is still, and likely to remain, an important mining centre-its rich quartz reefs (worked in the Lansell mine at a depth of 2,640 feet) being practically inexhaustible. Echuca (5) is a border town, situated on a peninsula formed by the junction of the Murray and the Campaspe rivers. It is the terminus of the Northern Railway from Melbourne (156 miles distant), and is connected by a bridge across the Murray with Moama, and thence by rail with Deniliquin, in New South Wales.

Beechworth (3), the principal town in the north-eastern part of the state, is the centre of the celebrated Ovens River gold-mining district. The town is connected by a branch line with the main line of railway between Melbourne and

1. Around Ararat and Stawell lies the chief wine producing area of the state

Sydney; the Victorian terminus is Wodonga, on an arm of the Murray River, but the trains run right through to the New South Wales terminus, Albury, on the opposite side of the river. Beechworth, on one of the spurs of the Australian Alps, lies at an elevation of 1,800 feet, but Sale (3%), the principal town in Gippsland, is only about 30 feet above the sea level. Sale is at the head of navigation of the Gippsland lakes, and carries on a considerable trade with Melbourne by sea and by the Eastern Railway, which now terminates at Bairnsdale (3), another lake-port at the mouth of the Mitchell River; and Horsham (2%), is the chief town of the Wimmera district, and the centre of an agricultural and pastoral area.

QUEENSLAND.

QUEENSLAND is another "New England," growing daily in wealth and population under the bright sun and cloudless sky of Australia. This immense state occupies the whole of the northeastern portion of the continent, and is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the north by Torres Strait and the Gulf of Carpentaria, on the west by South Australia, and on the south by New South Wales.

The boundary of Queensland on the South is formed by a line from Point Danger, running westward along the Macpherson and Dividing Ranges, and the Dumaresq and Macintyre rivers, and thence along the 29th parallel to the 141st meridian East longitude. The western boundary is formed by the 141st meridian from the 29th to the 26th parallel, and thence by the 138th meridian to the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria.

EXTENT: The length of the state, from north to south, is about 1,300 miles, the breadth 800 miles, and the coast-line 2,550 miles. Its area is 668,497 square miles, or rather less than onefourth of the continent.

Queensland is thus the largest of the three states of Eastern Australia, but both South Australia and Western Australia are one-third larger. And yet this vast and richly endowed state, with an area 12 times that of England and Wales, has a population of only two-thirds that of Liverpool-the actual number, in 1901, being 503, 266, or about one person to every 1 square miles of area. Included in this number are about 9,319 Chinese, 9,300 Polynesians, and about 2,300 Japanese. The aborigines are variously estimated at from 10,000 to 20,000, but they are probably much more numerous.

COASTS: The extensive seaboard of Queensland includes the whole of the eastern coast from Point Danger to Cape York--the northernmost point of the continent-and also the eastern and part of the southern shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Along the eastern coast, at a distance of from 10 to 150 miles, the vast natural breakwater of the Great Barrier Reef makes sea-voyaging a pleasure for more than 1,200 miles. There are numerous openings in the reefs through which vessels may, in stormy weather, pass from the open ocean to the smooth water between the reefs and the coast, but there is only one really safe passage fot ships. The long voyage, from Torres Strait as far south as Cape Capricorn. is entirely within the sheltered channel thus formed.

The coasts of Queensland are indented by a very large number of bays and gulfs, many of which form excellent harbours. Of these, the best known is Moreton Bay, which is about 40 miles long and 17 miles broad. Six navigable rivers the Brisbane, Logan, &c.-enter this fine bay, in almost any part of which vessels may anchor safely, under shelter of the numerous shoals. Port Curtis, on the Pacific coast, and the recently discovered Port Musgrave-at the mouth of the Batavia and Ducie rivers, on the eastern side of the Gulf of Carpen. taria-form splendid natural harbours. Other notable harbours are Hervey Bay, Keppel Bay, Port Bowen, Port Denison, Rockingham Bay, and Port Albany (near Cape York) on the eastern coast, Thursday Island harbour in Torres Strait, and Investigator Roads in the Gulf of Carpentaria,

Hundreds of islands stud the coastal waters of Queensland. Of these, the largest or most noteworthy are Stradbroke, Moreton, Fraser or Great Sandy Island, Curtis, and Hinchinbrook Islands, on the eastern coast; Prince of Wales and Thursday Islands, off the northern coast; and the Wellesley Islands in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

The principal headlands are Point Danger, Sandy Cape, Cape Capricorn, and Cape Flattery on the east, and Cape York on the north. Cape York, the extreme point of the long peninsula of Northern Queensland, is the northernmost point of the colony and also of the continent.

RELIEF: The main features in the relief of Queensland, as of New South Wales, are (1) the coastlands, (2) the tablelands and mountains, and (3) the vast interior plains.

Orographically, then, the general character of the surface of Queensland could be shown by three colours-one to mark out the comparatively narrow, lowlying lands between the sea and the mountains; another to show the long and irregular mountain ranges that rise from, or mark the seaward face of, the broad basaltic belt of tableland, which really extends from Cape York to the neighbourhood of Brisbane; and a third colour to distinguish the vast level plains that stretch away towards the western borders of the colony.

The Coast Range extends, under various names, from York Peninsula in the north to within a few miles of Brisbane. It runs nearly parallel with the coast, at an average distance of about 50 miles. The Main Range, which forms the northern portion of the long cordillera of Eastern Australia, runs inland of the Coast Range, and may be said to extend from the Macpherson Range, on the borders of New South Wales, to Cape York. The average elevation of these mountains is only about 2,000 feet; no summits in the Main Range exceed 5,000 feet. In the Coast Range the highest points are Wooroonooran, 5.400 feet, in the Bellenden Ker Range, and Mount Dalrymple, 4,200 feet, in the Mackay Range.

RIVERS: The Queensland rivers belong to four distinct systems: (1) those that flow eastward into the Pacific; (2) those that form the headwaters of the Darling, and thus belong to the basin of the Murray; (3) the streams that flow southwards, and many of those flowing westward from the Great Dividing Range, and are either lost in the sand or ultimately fall into the salt lakes of South Australia; and (4) those that flow northward into the Gulf of Car pentaria.

Of the numerous rivers which flow eastward across the fertile coast plain into the Pacific, the principal, in order from south to north, are the Brisbane, the Mary, the Burnett, the Fitzroy, the Burdekin, the Herbert, the Johnstone, the Daintree, and the Endeavour.

The headwaters of the Darling River, which include the Warrego, the Condamine or Balonne, the Macintyre and its tributary the Dumaresq, drain a large portion of the tablelands in the southern part of the colony. Further west, the Victoria or Barcoo flows, under the name of Cooper's Creek, into Lake Eyre, while the Diamentina or Mueller River, though swollen during the rainy season by floods of many tributary "creeks," is lost in the stony desert which lies to the north of Lake Eyre.

To the tropical basin of the Gulf of Carpentaria belong the Gregory, the Flinders one of the longest rivers in the colony-the Norman, the Gilbert, the Mitchell, and the Batavia. The Norman is navigable by sea-going vessels to Normanton. At the mouth of the Batavia is Port Musgrave, one of the finest natural harbours in Australia.

CLIMATE: Although the northern half of Queensland is within the Tropics, the heat is less oppressive than it is further south, while hot winds and sudden changes of temperature are unknown. During a large part of the year, the weather is fine, the sky cloudless, and the air dry and exhilarating."

In such an extensive territory, stretching, as Queensland does, over 19° of latitude-from 10° to 29° S. lat.-there are, of course, great varieties of climate, but it may be said, generally, that the seaboard districts are hot and moist, while the interior plains are hot and dry, and that frosts and cold winds are known only on the elevated uplands in the south and west. In the summer, the heat is tropical, and along the coast it is felt the more on account of the heavy rains which then fall. For seven months in the year the heat is, however, tempered by the south-east sea breezes. The winter season is generally dry, and then it is most delightful. On the whole, although the Darling Downs in the south is the only district that can fairly be said to be within the Temperate Zone, the climate of Queensland, though hot, is healthy, and not unsuitable for Europeans. The colonists, both British and colonial born, pursue their ordinary avocations and enjoy their sports and pastimes all the year round as in England. On the cattle stations in the interior of the far north, the English immigrants are able to remain the whole day in the saddle, even in the height of summer. Boat races are rowed at Rockhampton even in the hottest weather; and lawn tennis and cricket are carried on throughout the colony even in the summer time.1 On the whole, it may be said that there is no country in the world at once so healthful and attractive, and certainly none where an Englishman can live an outdoor life in all seasons with such entire immunity from all physical ills.

The rainfall on the coastlands (and especially in the north) is, on the whole, very heavy, and in some parts excessive, frequently amounting in the south part of Cook district to over 160 inches in the year. But there is much variation even along the coast, the fall being moderate at Brisbane, scarcely 30 inches around the mouth of the Burdekin, and little more in the Port Curtis district. In the Darling Downs, the rainfall is generally sufficient for the farmers' needs, but in

1. Sir C. W. Dilke.

2. The winter months are May, June, and July the summer months are December, January, and February. In North Queensland, as in other tropical countries, there are really only two seasons, the

wet and the dry. The average annual temperature at Brisbane is 70° as against 51° in London.

the rain falls in summer; in New South Wales and 3. As in other tropical and semi-tropical countries. Victoria it falls chiefly in winter.