Death of Prince Henry of Battenberg.

had helped her in the management of her most private affairs and had acted as an intermediary between her and her ministers with singular ability and success. His successor was Sir Arthur Bigge. The following year, 1896, was marked by a loss which touched the queen even more nearly and more personally. At his own urgent request Prince Henry of Battenberg, the queen's son-in-law, was permitted to join the Ashanti expedition, and early in January the prince was struck down with fever. He was brought to the coast and put on board her majesty's ship "Blonde," where, on the 20th, he died.

The

In September 1896 the queen's reign had reached a point at which it exceeded in length that of any other English sovereign; but by her special request all public Diamond celebrations of the fact were deferred until the followJubilee. ing June, which marked the completion of sixty years from her accession. As the time drew on it was obvious that the celebrations of this Diamond Jubilee, as it was popularly called, would exceed in magnificence those of the Jubilee of 1887. Mr Chamberlain, the secretary for the colonies, induced his colleagues to seize the opportunity of making the jubilee a festival of the British empire. Accordingly, the prime ministers of all the self-governing colonies, with their families, were invited to come to London as the guests of the country to take part in the Jubilee procession; and drafts of the troops from every British colony and dependency were brought home for the same purpose. The procession was, in the strictest sense of the term, unique. Here was a display, not only of Englishmen, Scotsmen, Irishmen, Welshmen, but of Mounted Rifles from Victoria and New South Wales, from the Cape and from Natal, and from the Dominion of Canada. Here were Hausas from the Niger and the Gold Coast, coloured men from the West India regiments, zaptiehs from Cyprus, Chinamen from Hong Kong, and Dyaks-now civilized into military police-from British North Borneo. Here, most brilliant sight of all, were the Imperial Service troops sent by the native princes of India; while the detachmen's of Sikhs who marched earlier in the procession received their full meed of admiration and applause. Altogether the queen was in her carriage for more than four hours, in itself an extraordinary physical feat for a woman of seventy-eight. Her own feelings were shown by the simple but significant message she sent to her people throughout the world: "From my heart I thank my beloved people. May God bless them." The illuminations in London and the great provincial towns were magnificent, and all the hills from Ben Nevis to the South Downs were crowned with bonfires. The queen herself held a great review at Aldershot; but a much more significant display was the review by the prince of Wales of the fleet at Spithead on Saturday, the 26th of June. No less than 165 vessels of all classes were drawn up in four lines, extending altogether to a length of 30 m.

for the defence of its integrity; and the satisfaction which she showed in the Federation of the Australian colonies was no less keen. The reverses of the first part of the Boer campaign, together with the loss of so many of her officers and soldiers, caused no small part of that " great strain" of which the Court Circular spoke in the ominous words which first told the country that she was seriously ill. But the queen faced the new situation with her usual courage, devotion and strength of will. She reviewed the departing regiments; she entertained the wives and children of the Windsor soldiers who had gone to the war; she showed by frequent messages her watchful interest in the course of the campaign and in the efforts which were being made throughout the whole empire; and her Christmas gift of a box of chocolate to every soldier in South Africa was a touching proof of her sympathy and interest. She relinquished her annual holiday on the Riviera, feeling that at such a time she ought not to leave her country. Entirely on her own initiative, and moved by admiration for the fine achievements of "her brave Irish" during the war, the queen announced her intention of paying a long visit to Dublin; and there, accordingly, she went for the month of April 1900, staying in the Viceregal Lodge, receiving many of the leaders of Irish society, inspecting some 50,000 school children from all parts of Ireland, and taking many a drive amid the charming scenery of the neighbourhood of Dublin. She went even further than this attempt to conciliate Irish feeling, and to show her recognition of the gallantry of the Irish soldiers she issued an order for them to wear the shamrock on St Patrick's Day, and for a new regiment of Irish Guards to be constituted.

In the previous November the queen had had the pleasure of receiving, on a private visit, her grandson, the German Emperor, who came accompanied by the empress and by two of their sons. This visit cheered the queen, and the successes of the army which followed the arrival of Lord Roberts in Africa occasioned great joy to her, as she testified by many published messages. But independently of the public anxieties of the war, and of those aroused by the violent and unexpected outbreak of fanaticism in China, the year brought deep private griefs to the queen. In 1899 her grandson, the hereditary prince of Coburg, had succumbed to phthisis, and in 1900 his father, the duke of Coburg, the queen's second son, previously known as the duke of Edinburgh, also died (July 30). Then Prince Christian Victor, the queen's grandson, fell a victim to enteric fever at Pretoria; and during the autumn it came to be known that the empress Frederick, the queen's eldest daughter, was very seriously ill. Moreover, just at the end of the year a loss which greatly shocked and grieved the queen was experienced in the sudden death, at Windsor Castle, of the Dowager Lady Churchill, one of her oldest and most intimate friends. These losses told upon the queen at her advanced age. Throughout her life she had enjoyed excellent health, and even in the last few years the only marks of age were rheumatic stiffness of the joints, which prevented walking, and a diminished power of eyesight. In the autumn of 1900, however, her health began definitely to fail, and though arrangements were made for another holiday in the South, it was plain that her strength was seriously affected. Still she continued the ordinary routine of her duties and occupations. Christmas she made her usual journey to Osborne, and there on the 2nd of January she received Lord Roberts on his return

Death of the queen.

Before

A fortnight later she commanded a second visit from the fieldmarshal; she continued to transact business, and until a week before her death she still took her daily drive. A sudden loss of power then supervened, and on Friday evening, the 18th of January, the Court Circular published an authoritative announcement of her illness. On Tuesday, the 22nd of January 1901, she died.

Queen Victoria was a ruler of a new type. When she ascended the throne the popular faith in kings and queens was on the decline. She revived that faith; she consolidated her throne; she not only captivated the affections of the multitude, but

Though richly endowed with saving common sense, the queen was not specially remarkable for high development of any specialized intellectual force. Her whole life, public and private, was an abiding lesson in the paramount importance of character. John Bright said of her that what specially struck him was her absolute truthfulness. The extent of her family connexions, and the correspondence she maintained with foreign sovereigns, together with the confidence inspired by her personal character, often enabled her to smooth the rugged places of international relations; and she gradually became in later years the link between all parts of a democratic empire, the citizens of which felt a passionate loyalty for their venerable queen.

By her long reign and unblemished record her name had become associated inseparably with British institutions and imperial solidarity. Her own life was by choice, and as far as her position would admit, one of almost austere simplicity and homeliness; and her subjects were proud of a royalty which involved none of the mischiefs of caprice or ostentation, but set an example alike of motherly sympathy and of queenly dignity. She was mourned at her death not by her own country only, nor even by all English-speaking people, but by the whole world. The funeral in London on the 1st and 2nd of February, including first the passage of the coffin from the Isle of Wight to Gosport between lines of warships, and secondly a military procession from London to Windsor, was a memorable solemnity: the greatest of English sovereigns, whose name would in history mark an age, had gone to her rest.

There is a good bibliographical note at the end of Mr Sidney Lee's article in the National Dictionary of Biography. See also the Letters of Queen Victoria (1907), and the obituary published by The Times, from which some passages have been borrowed above. (H. CH.) VICTORIA (or VITTORIA), TOMMASSO LUDOVICO DA (c. 1540-c. 1613), Spanish musical composer, was born at Avila (unless, as Haberl conjectures, his title of Presbyter Abulensis refers not to his birthplace but to his parish as priest, so that his name would indicate that he was born at Vittoria). In 1573 he was appointed as Maestro di Cappella to the Collegium Germanicum at Rome, where he had probably been trained. Victoria left Rome in 1589, being then appointed vice-master of the Royal Chapel at Madrid, a post which he held until 1602. In 1603 he composed for the funeral of the empress Maria the greatest requiem of the Golden Age, which is his last known work, though in 1613 a contemporary speaks of him as still living, He was not ostensibly Palestrina's pupil; but Palestrina had the main influence upon his art, and the personal relations between the two were as intimate as were the artistic. The work begun by Morales and perfected by Palestrina left no stumbling-blocks in Victoria's path and he was able from the outset to express the purity of his ideals of religious music without having to sift the good from the bad in that Flemish tradition which had entangled Palestrina's path while it enlarged his style. From Victoria's first publication in 1572 to his last requiem (the Officium Defunctorum of 1605) there is practically no change of style, all being pure church music of unswerving loftiness and showing no inequality except in concentration of thought. Like his countryman and predecessor Morales, he wrote no secular music; yet he differs from Morales, perhaps more than can be accounted for by his later date, in that his devotional spirit is impulsive rather than ascetic. His work 1 One French song is mentioned by Hawkins, but no secular music appears in the prospectus of the modern complete edition of his works published by Breitkopf and Härtel.

as not constituting a special school, since it absorbed itself so thoroughly in the Rome of Palestrina. Yet, as has been aptly pointed out in the admirable article "Vittoria" in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Roman music owes so much to that Spanish school which produced Guerrero, Morales and Victoria, that it might fairly be called the Hispano-Roman school. In spite of the comparative smallness of Victoria's output as compared with that of many of his contemporaries, there is no mistaking his claim to rank with Palestrina and Orlando di Lasso in the triad of supreme 16th-century masters. In any extensive anthology of liturgical polyphony such as the Musica Divina of Proske, his work stands out as impressively as Palestrina's and Lasso's; and the style, in spite of a resemblance to Palestrina which amounts to imitation, is as individual as only a successful imitator of Palestrina can be. That is to say, Victoria's individuality is strong enough to assert itself by the very act of following Palestrina's path. When he is below his best his style does not become crabbed or harsh, but over-facile and thin, though never failing in euphony. If he seldom displays an elaborate technique it is not because he conceals it, or lacks it. His mastery is unfailing, but his methods are those of direct emotional effect; and the intellectual qualities that strengthen and deepen this emotion are themselves innate and not sought out. The emotion is reasonable and lofty, not because he has trained himself to think correctly, but because he does not know that any one can think otherwise. His works fill eight volumes in the complete edition of Messrs Breitkopf and Härtel. (D. F. T.)

VICTORIA, a British colonial state, occupying the southcastern corner of Australia. Its western boundary is in 140° 58′ E.; on the cast it runs out to a point at Cape Howe, in 150° E. long., being thus rudely triangular in shape; the river Murray constitutes nearly the whole of the northern boundary, its most northerly point being in 34° S. lat.; the southern boundary is the coast-line of the Southern Ocean and of Bass Strait; the most southerly point is Wilson's Promontory in 39° S. lat. The greatest length east and west is about 480 m.; the greatest width, in the west, is about 250 m. The area is officially stated to be 87,884 sq. m.

The coast-line may be estimated at about 800 m. It begins about the 141st meridian with bold but not lofty sandstone cliffs, worn into deep caves and capped by grassy undulations, which extend inland to pleasant park-like lands. Capes Bridgewater and Nelson form a peninsula of forest lands, broken by patches of meadow. To the east of Cape Nelson' lies the moderately sheltered inlet of Portland Bay, consisting of a sweep of sandy beach flanked by bold granite rocks. Then comes a long unbroken stretch of high cliffs, which, owing to insetting currents, have been the scene of many calamitous wrecks. Cape Otway is the termination of a wild mountain range that here abuts on the coast. Its brown cliffs rise vertically from the water; and the steep slopes above are covered with dense forests of exceedingly tall timber and tree-ferns. Eastwards from this cape the line of cliffs gradually diminishes in height to about 20 to 40 ft. at the entrance to Port Phillip. Next comes Port Phillip Bay, at the head of which stands the city of Melbourne. When the tide recedes from this bay through the narrow entrance it often encounters a strong current just outside; the broken and somewhat dangerous sea thus caused is called "the Rip." East of Port Phillip Bay the shores consist for 15 m. of a line of sandbanks; but at Cape Schanck they suddenly become high and bold. East of this comes Western Port, a deep inlet more than half occupied by French Island and Phillip Island. Its shores are flat and uninteresting, in some parts swampy. The bay is shallow and of little use for navigation. The coast continues rocky round Cape Liptrap. Wilson's Promontory is a great rounded mass of granite hills, with wild and striking scenery, tree-fern gullies and gigantic gum-trees, connected with the mainland by a narrow sandy isthmus. At its extremity lie a multitude of rocky islets, with steep granite edges, North of this cape, and

opening to the east, lies Corner Inlet, which is dry at low water. The coast now continues low to the extremity of the colony. The slight bend northward forms a sort of bight called the Ninety Mile Beach, but it really exceeds that length. It is an unbroken line of sandy shore, backed by low sandhills, on which grows a sparse dwarf vegetation. Behind these hills comes a succession of lakes, surrounded by excellent land, and beyond these rise the soft blue outlines of the mountain masses of the interior. The shores on the extreme east are somewhat

higher, and occasionally rise in bold points. They terminate in Cape Howe, off which lies Gabo Island, of small extent but containing an important lighthouse and signalling station.

lands ranging from 3000 to 5000 ft. in height. The highest peak, Bogong, is 6508 ft. in altitude. The ranges are so densely covered About fifteen peaks over 5000 ft. in height have been measured. with vegetation that it is extremely difficult to penetrate them. Along the ranges grow the giant trees for which Victoria is famous. The narrow valleys and gullies contain exquisite scenery, the rocky streams being overshadowed by groves of graceful tree-ferns, from gums. Over ten millions of acres are thus covered with forest-clad amid whose waving fronds rise the tall smooth stems of the white mountains which in due time will become a very valuable asset of the state. The Australian Alps are connected with the Pyrenees by a long ridge called the Dividing Range (1500 to 3000 ft. high). small to admit of navigation. This, however, is not the case with Victoria is fairly well watered, but its streams are generally too

Rivers.

the Murray river (q.v.). The Murray for a distance of 670 m. (or 1250 m. if its various windings be followed) forms the boundary between New South Wales and Victoria, it receives a number of tributaries from the Victorian side. The Mitta Mitta, which rises in the heart of the Australian Alps, is 150 m. long. The Ovens, rising among the same mountains, is slightly shorter. The Goulburn (340 m.) flows almost entirely through well-settled agricultural country, and is deep enough to be used in its lower part for navigation. The valley of this river is a fertile grainproducing district. The Campaspe (150 m.) has too little volume of water to be of use for navigation; its valley is also agricultural, and along its banks there lie a close succession of thriving townships. The Loddon (over 200 m.) rises in the Pyrenees. The upper part flows through a plain, to the right agricultural and to the left auriferous, containing nearly forty thriving towns, including Bendigo (formerly named Sandhurst) and Castlemaine. In the lower part of the valley the soil is also fertile, but the rainfall is small. To the west of the Loddon is the Avoca river with a length of 140 m.; it is of slight volume, and though it flows towards the Murray it loses itself in marshes and salt lagoons before reaching that river.

The western half of Victoria is level or slightly undulating, and as a rule tame in its scenery, exhibiting only thinly timbered grassy lands, with all the appearance of open parks. The north-west corner of the colony, equally flat, is dry and sometimes sandy, and frequently bare of vegetation, though in one part some seven or eight millions of acres are covered with the dense brushwood known as "mallee scrub." This wide western plain is slightly broken in two places. In the south the wild ranges of Cape Otway are covered over a considerable area with richly luxurious but almost impassable forests. This district has been reserved as a state forest and its coast forms a favourite holiday resort, the scenery being very attractive. The middle of the plain is crossed by a thin line of mountains, known as the Australian Pyrenees, at the western extremity of which there are several irregularly placed transverse ranges, the chief being the Grampians, the Victoria Range and the Sierra Range. Their highest point is Mount William (3600 feet). The eastern half of the colony is wholly different. Though there is plenty of level land, it occurs in small patches, and chiefly in the south, in Gippsland, which extends from Corner Inlet to Cape Howe. But a great part of this eastern half is occupied with the complicated mass of ranges known collectively as the Australian Alps. The whole forms a plateau averaging from 1000 to 2000 ft. high, with many smaller table

The rivers which flow southwards into the ocean are numerous. The Snowy river rises in New South Wales, and in Victoria flows entirely through wild and almost wholly unoccupied territory.

age, and is important from its thick beds of brown coal, which are thickest in the Great Valley of Victoria in southern Gippsland. A cliff face on the banks of the Latrobe, near Morwell, shows go ft. of it, and a bore near Morwell is recorded as having passed through 850 ft. of brown coal. Its thickness, at least in patches, is very great. The brown coals occur to the south-east of Melbourne, under the basalts between it and Geelong. Brown coal is also abundant under the Murray plains in north-western Victoria. The Kainozoic marine rocks occur at intervals along the southern coast and in the valleys opening from it. The most important horizon is apparently of Miocene age. The rocks occur at intervals in eastern Victoria, along the coast and up the river valleys, from the Snowy river westward to Alberton. At the time of the deposition of these beds Wilson's Promontory probably extended south-eastward and joined Tasmania; for the mid-Kaínozoic marine deposits do not occur between Alberton and Flinders, to the west of Western Port. They extend up the old valley of Port Phillip as far as Keilor to the north of Melbourne, and are widely distributed under the volcanic rocks of the Western Plains. They are exposed on the floors of the volcanic cauldrons, and have been found by mining operations under the volcanic rocks of the Ballarat plateau near Pitfield. The Miocene sea extended up the Glenelg valley, round the western border of the Dundas Highlands, and spread over the Lower Murray Basin into New South Wales; its farthest south-eastern limit was in a valley at Stawell. Some later marine deposits occur at the Lakes Entrance in eastern Gippsland, and in the valley of the Glenelg. The volcanic series begins with a line of great dacite domes including the geburite-dacite of Macedon, which is associated with sölvsbergites and trachy-dolerites. The eruption of these domes. was followed by that of sheets of basalt of several different ages, and the intrusion of some trachyte dykes. The oldest basalts are associated with the Oligocene lake deposits; and fragments of the large lava sheets of this period form some of the table-topped mountains in the Highlands of eastern Victoria. The river gravels below the lavas have been worked for gold, and land plants discovered in the workings. At Flinders the basalts are associated with Miocene limestones. The largest development of the volcanic rocks are a series of confluent sheets of basalt, forming the Western Plains, which occupy over 10,000 sq. m. of south-western Victoria. They are crossed almost continuously by the South- Western railway for 166 m. from Melbourne to Warrnambool. The volcanic craters built up by later eruptions are well preserved: such are Mount Elephant, a simple breached cone; Mount Noorat, with a large primary crater and four secondary craters on its flanks; Mount Warrenheip, near Ballarat, a single cone with the crater breached to the north-west. Mount Franklin, standing on the Ordovician rocks north of Daylesford, is a weathered cone breached to the south-east. In addition to the volcanic craters, there are numerous volcanic cauldrons formed by subsidence, such as Bullenmerri and Gnotuk near Camperdown, Keilembete near Terang, and Tower Hill near Port Fairy. Tower Hill consists of a large volcanic cauldron, and rising from an island in a lake on its floor is a later volcanic crater.

The Pleistocene, or perhaps Upper Pliocene, deposits of most interest are those containing the bones of giant marsupials, such as the Diprotodon and Palorchestes, which have been found near Geelong, Castlemaine, Lake Kolungulak, &c.; at the last locality Diprotodon and various extinct kangaroos have been found in association with the dingo. There is no trace in these deposits of the existence of man, and J. W. Gregory has reasserted the striking absence of evidence of man's residence in Victoria, except for a very limited period. There is no convincing evidence of Pleistocene glacial deposits in Victoria. Of the many records, the only one that can still be regarded as at all probable is that regarding Mount Bogong The chief literature on the geology of Victoria is to be found in the maps and publications of the Geological Survey-a branch of the Mines Department. A map of the State, on the scale of eight inches to the mile, was issued in 1902. The Survey has published numerous quarter-sheet maps, and maps of the gold fields and parishes. The geology is described in the Reports, Bulletins and Memoirs of the Survey, and in the Quarterly Reports of the Mining Registrars. Statistics of the mining industry are stated in the Annual Report of the Secretary for Mines. See also the general summary of the geology of Victoria, by R. Murray, issued by the Mines Department in 1887 and 1895. Numerous papers on the geology of the State are contained in the Trans. R. Soc. Victoria, and on its mining geology in the Trans. of the Austral. Inst. Min. Engineers. The physical geography has been described by J. W. Gregory in the Geography of Victoria (1903). (J. W. G.) Flora.-The native trees belong chiefly to the Myrtaceae, being largely composed of Eucalypti or gum trees. There are several hundred species, the most notable being Eucalyptus amygdalina, a tree with tall white stem, smooth as a marble column, and without branches for 60 or 70 ft. from the ground. It is singularly beautiful when seen in groves, for these have all the appearance of lofty pillared cathedrals. These trees are among the tallest in the world, averaging in some districts about 300 ft. The longest ever measured was found prostrate on the Black Spur: it measured

470 ft. in length; it was 81 ft. in girth near the root. Eucalyptus globulus or blue gum has broad green leaves, which yield the eucalyptus oil of the pharmacopoeia. Eucalyptus rostrata is extensively used in the colony as a timber, being popularly known as red gum or hard wood. It is quite unaffected by weather, and almost indestructible when used as piles for piers or wharves. Smaller species of eucalyptus form the common "bush." Melaleucas, also of Myrtacea kind, are prominent objects along all the coasts, where they grow densely on the sand-hills, forming "ti-tree" scrub. Eucalyptus dumosa is a species which grows only 6 to 12 ft. high, but with a straight stem; the trees grow so close together that it is difficult to penetrate the scrub formed by them. Eleven and a half million acres of the Wimmera district are covered with this mallee scrub," as it is called. Recent legislation has made this land easy of acquisition, and the whole of it has been taken up on pastoral leases. Five hundred thousand acres have recently been taken up as an irrigation colony on Californian principles and laid out in 40-acre farms and orchards. The Leguminosae are chiefly represented by acacias, of which the wattle is the commonest. The black wattle is of considerable value, its gum being marketable and its bark worth from £5 to £10 a ton for tanning purposes. The golden wattle is a beautiful tree, whose rich yellow blossoms fill the river-valleys in early spring with delicious scent. The Casuarinae or she-oaks are gloomy trees, of little use, but of frequent occurrence. Heaths, grass-trees and magnificent ferns and fern-trees are also notable features in Victorian forests. But European and subtropical vegetation has been introduced into the colony to such an extent as to have largely altered the characters of the flora in many districts. Fauna.-The indigenous animals belong almost wholly to the Marsupialia. Kangaroos are tolerably abundant on the grassy plains, but the process of settlement is causing their extermination. A smaller species of almost identical appearance called the wallaby is still numerous in the forest lands. Kangaroo rats, opossums, wombats, native bears, bandicoots and native cats all belong to the same class. The wombat forms extensive burrows in some districts. The native bear is a frugivorous little animal, and very harmless. Bats are numerous, the largest species being the flying fox, very abundant in some districts. Eagles, hawks, turkeys, pigeons, ducks, quail, snipe and plover are common; but the characteristic denizens of the forest are vast flocks of parrots, parakeets and cockatoos, with sulphur-coloured or crimson crests. The laughing jackass (giant kingfisher) is heard in all the country parts, and magpies are numerous everywhere. Snakes are numerous, but less than one-fourth of the species are venomous, and they are all very shy. The deaths from snake-bite do not average two per annum. A great change is rapidly taking place in the fauna of the country, owing to cultivation and acclimatization. Dingoes have nearly disappeared, and rabbits, which were introduced only a few years ago, now abound in such numbers as to be a positive nuisance. Deer are also rapidly becoming numerous. Sparrows and swallows are as common as in England. The trout, which has also been acclimatized, is taking full possession of some of the streams.

Climate-Victoria enjoys an exceptionally fine climate. Roughly speaking, about one-half of the days in the year present a bright, cloudless sky, with a bracing and dry atmosphere, pleasantly warm but not relaxing. These days are mainly in the autumn and spring. During forty-eight years, ending with 1905, there have been on an average 132 days annually on which rain has fallen more or less (chiefly in winter, but rainy days do not exceed thirty in the year. The average yearly rainfall was 25-61 in. The disagrecable feature of the Victorian climate is the occurrence of north winds, which blow on an average about sixty days in the year. In winter they are cold and dry, and have a slightly depressing effect; but in summer they are hot and dry, and generally bring with them disagreeable clouds of dust. The winds themselves blow for periods of two or three days at a time, and if the summer has six or eight such periods it becomes relaxing and produces languor. These winds cease with extraordinary suddenness, being replaced in a minute or two by a cool and bracing breeze from the south. The temperature often falls 40° or 50° F. in an hour. The maximum shade temperature at Melbourne in 1905 was 108-5°, and the minimum 326, giving a mean of 56-1°. The temperature never falls below freezing-point, except for an hour or two before sunrise in the coldest month. Snow has been known to fall in Melbourne for a few minutes two or three times during a long period of years. It is common enough, however, on the plateau; Ballarat, which is over 1000 ft. high, always has a few snowstorms, and the roads to Omeo among the Australian Alps lie under several feet of snow in the winter. The general healthiness of the climate is shown by the fact that the average death-rate for the last five years has been only 12.71 of the population.

16

Population.-As regards population, Victoria maintained the leading position among the Australasian colonies until the end of 1891, when New South Wales overtook it. The population in 1905 was 1,218,571, the proportion of the sexes being nearly equal. In 1860 the population numbered 537,847; in 1870,