Australia as sheep farmers. As their numbers increased, the transported criminals were found troublesome. Since A.D. 1840 no convicts have been sent to Botany Bay; and for many years past transportation to Australia has been altogether abandoned.

The Australian Colonies then commenced to grow very rapidly in wealth and population, by their flock-keeping and agriculture; and their growth was further stimulated in A.D. 1851 by the discovery of gold in large quantities.

574. ANIMALS. All the Mammalia of Australia, except rats and bats, are quite unlike any animals in Europe, Asia, or Africa. They nearly all belong to the order of Marsupials, i.e. pouched animals, so called because the young are born in a very helpless condition, and their mother has a kind of pouch or pocket in which she can carry them about till they are able to run alone. The best known of the Marsupials are the kangaroos, of which there are many species, some attaining more than seven feet in length; and the young of this great animal is only an inch long when born, and remains about eight months afterwards in the pouch.

In Australia, though there are fierce carnivorous animals as well as harmless vegetable feeders like the kangaroo, nearly all the animals are pouched. Thus Australia possesses a pouched hyæna, a pouched rat, and a pouched bear; at least the general aspect of these three animals approaches that of a hyæna, rat, and bear, but they are all" Marsupial," and structurally more allied to kangaroos.

The commonest Australian animals are the phalangers, called by the English colonists, " 'opossums," which they very nearly are. The true opossums are natives of America, and are Marsupials, the only Marsupials now known out of Australia. But in past geological ages, Marsupials were widely spread over the globe.

One of the strangest of Australian animals 'is the ornithorhynchus, an animal that has the form pretty much of an otter, the feet webbed, and a bill like a duck.

Taken as a whole Australia is very poor in Mammalia,

both as to variety and numbers, and is a great contrast to south-east Asia and Africa in this respect.

575. PLANTS. The vegetation of tropical Australia, as on the Gulf of Carpentaria, is in several respects tropical. We find palms, bananas, and bamboos. In temperate Australia we find pines, and some other trees reminding us of Europe, but as a whole the Australian vegetation is as peculiar as its fauna. It abounds in trees and shrubs with pale olive foliage. The gum-trees and acacias are prevalent features of the dry forests. Few of the native trees bear any useful fruit. We are told commonly that in the Australian cherry the stone grows outside the fruit; this only means that the Australian fruit which the English settlers are pleased to call a cherry is really totally unlike a cherry. The Australian flora contains several orders of plants found nowhere else on the globe; and also is somewhat allied to the peculiar flora of the Cape of Good Hope. But in past geological ages these peculiar plants, like the Marsupials, were widely spread over the globe.

The valuable plants introduced into Australia thrive admirably, and it is upon these that the colonists rely wholly for food. Wheat, maize, potatoes, all kinds of grasses and clovers, grapes, oranges, peaches, and most fruits, succeed in extratropical Australia. In Queensland, rice, cotton, tobacco, and the sugar-cane are raised with small trouble.

576. MINERALS. Gold was first discovered in 1851 in New South Wales, soon after in Victoria, and subsequently in South Australia, in Queensland, and in West Australia: in localities 2,000 miles apart, and in such quantities that in the first ten years gold to the amount of 100,000,000l. was obtained. Nor has the produce of gold greatly fallen off up to the present time. The richest gold-mines are in Victoria and South Australia.

Copper has also been discovered in Victoria and South Australia. The mines are so rich that it has become (within the last few years) unprofitable to work the deep copper mines of Cornwall.

Lead has been discovered both in South Australia and

West Australia. Coal has been found in many places. Salt is obtained in large quantity from the edges of the brackish lagoons when they dry up.

577. DIVISIONS. Australia is divided into six separate States, each of which is administered by a Governor appointed by the Queen, and a Parliament elected in the colony. The names of these States are :

(1) New South Wales is the oldest colony. The high lands on the western side of the Blue Mountains afford

́excellent pasturage. Wool is largely exported. Coal the chief mineral product. Sydney contains 100,000 inhabit

ants.

(2) West Australia, one of the oldest colonies, for many years advanced more slowly than the others where gold was earlier discovered. Only a very small area on the Swan River, near Perth, is inhabited; the greater portion of its enormous area is altogether unexplored. On Swan River black swans were first met with. West Australia is less subject to droughts and to hot winds than Victoria or New South Wales, and contains admirable pastures.

(3) Victoria has wholly sprung up since A.D. 1837. Melbourne contains nearly 200,000 inhabitants, and is called the "Queen of the South," for no city in the Southern Hemisphere can vie with it. Victoria has been a large gold exporting colony.

(4) South Australia appears on the maps to possess a territory extending to the northern coast, but the northern half of this has really nothing to do with South Australia,

and is now considered a "Territory," i.e. a State in the process of formation, and is called North Australia. Only a few explorers, at great risk and with great hardships, have succeeded in crossing Australia from north to south, and several have lost their lives in the attempt.

The population is almost wholly in the neighbourhood of Adelaide, which town contains 20,000 inhabitants. South Australia has largely exported gold, but is also productive in wheat and coal: the colonists possess immense flocks.

(5) Queensland was only established as a separate Colony in 1859, but its progress has been rapid. It is the only tropical country where the English as yet have been able to live as colonists. The great Australian mountain range, called Blue Mountains near Sydney, sinks northwards, and spreads out into elevated grassy plains, where the English colonists can tend sheep, though within the tropics. The lowlands of Queensland will grow coffee, cotton, and other sub-tropical plants; and on the Gulf of Carpentaria the sago-palm.

(6) Tasmania has of late years progressed more slowly: the emigrants being attracted to the gold colonies of Victoria and South Australia in preference. It exports wool and is known to be rich in coal and iron. The capital, HobartTown, contains 20,000 inhabitants. The climate is sensibly cooler even than that of the south coast of Australia, but hot winds from the Australian continent sometimes reach it.

Sect. XLIII. NEW ZEALAND.

578. EXTENT. New Zealand consists of two islands called respectively the North Island and the South Island, which together are larger than Britain. Several small islands are attached.

579. CLIMATE. New Zealand is near the Antipodes, less far from the equator than England, and has an insular climate resembling a good deal that of England, but warmer. The South Island is a little warmer than England, the North

Island a good deal warmer.

New Zealand has a moist and windy climate, without any extreme cold in winter.

580. MOUNTAINS AND PLAINS. New Zealand is much more mountainous than Britain; the Southern Alps, near the west coast of South Island, attain 13,200 feet in height. There are also numerous volcanic cones of great height: Mount Edgecomb, in the south-west of North Island, attains 9,630 feet; several other cones are nearly as high, and the active volcano of Tongarivo is 6,200 feet high.

Though the scenery is varied by such fine mountains, it is yet estimated that two-thirds of the area of New Zealand is fit either for agriculture or pasture.

581. RACES OF MEN. When Captain Cook visited New Zealand in 1769 the islands were inhabited by the Maori race, a Malay people, then estimated to be 200,000 in number In 1861 they were found to be 55,276. At the census of 1873 there were found 280,000 English and 35,0co Maori.

The Maori race are tall, intelligent, and superior examples of the Malay race, but fierce, and not free from cannibalism. Their extinction seems rapidly approaching. If a solitary New Zealander ever sketches the ruins of St. Paul's from a broken arch of London Bridge, he will be a Teuton of the branch Angle.

582. ANIMALS AND PLANTS. The fauna and flora of New Zealand are allied to those of the nearest continent, Australia. Like Australia, New Zealand is very poor in quadrupeds. But it contained, till late years, gigantic birds with such imperfect wings that they could not fly. Bones of these, representing birds nearly fourteen feet high, have been found.

In New Zealand most of the plants and animals valuable to man that have been introduced by the colonists have succeeded well, as in Australia.

583. MINERALS. New Zealand, again like Australia, is very rich in minerals, and generally in the same minerals as Australia. Gold has been found in many places; coal is abundant; the mines of copper are extremely rich.

584. HISTORIC SKETCH. The colony of New Zealand