MEL`BOURNE, capital of the British colony of Victoria, iu Australia, is situated chiefly on the D. bank of the Yarra-Yarra, about 9 m. by water and 2 m. by land above its mouth, in the spacious bay of Port-Phillip. Lat. 37° 48' s. long. 144" 58' east. Its streets are straight, regular, and wide. and are paved, macadamized, and plentifully supplied with gas and fresh water. Collins street, one of the leading thoroughfares, is one-third wider than the famous Broadway of New York. Melbourne is built of brick-. and stone, and contains many line churches. Perhaps nothing gives stronger testimony to the wealth and enterprise of the inhabitants of .Melbourne, than the rapidity with which so many noble institutions as adorn the city have sprung up among them. Among these, one of the chief is the university, with an annual endowment from the state of £9,000, and possessing valuable scholarships and exhibitions. It is a large building-, its the shape of a parallelogram, and is surrounded by extensive grounds. It was opened in April, 1855, and has a respectable staff of professors, with a considerable attendance of students in arts, law, engineering, etc. The post-office, a magnificent structure, in the Italian style, elaborately ornamented with sculpture, was built in 1859. The Yan-Yean water-works, by means of which water is conveyed by iron pipes front a distance of 18 m.; were opened in 1857. The parliament houses were erected in 1855, at a cost of £400,000. The buildings for the eihibition of 1880 cost above £70,000. Besides those mentioned, the chief institutions are the Melbourne hospital, the benevolent asylum, the immigrants' home, the servants' home, the orphan asylums, the lving-in-liospital, treas ury, county and city courts, public library, custom-house, barrads, picture gallery, the numerous richly ornamented banks, the grammar-school, Scotch college, besides many other educational establishments, and numerous literary and scientific institutions and societies. The,re are three daily newspapers, one evening journal, and several weeklies and monthlies. Melbourne is the center of about a dozen converging lines of railway; several of these being, however, only subui ban lines. There are several theaters and
public parks. The temperature is moderate; the mean of the year being 59°, and the variation between the average temperature of January (midsummer) and July (winter), 19'. The annual rainfall is about 32.33 inches. Melbourne occupies the first rank among the ports of tile British colonies, and is the most important trading town of the southern hemisphere. The pop., including the suburbs, is, '77, 244,700. The chief exports are gold, silver, wool, hides, cattle, and sheep. Six-sevenths of the entire com merce of the colony is carried on by Melbourne. For further information regarding trade, ete., see VICTORIA. Vessels drawing. 24 ft. Catl come up to the mouth of the Yarra-Yarra, hitt are unable to.ascend the river, on account of bars which obstruct its course. Melbourne, however, is connected with Sandridge on Port-Phillip by means of a railway 2 m. long. The chief industrial establishments of Melbourne are flour mills, tallow-boiling works, and brass and iron foundries. It is the see of an Dpiscopat bishop and a Roman Catholic archbishop.
PonT-Primmr, on which Melbourne is situated, is a spacious and beautiful inlet of" the South Pacific ocean, on the s. coast of Australia, and is 35 m. long, by about 25 m. broad. Its entrance, which is only 2 m. in width, is formed by two projecting promon tories, 'called the Heads; and on these promontories etrong fortifications were erected in 1861. Navioution at the entrance of the port is difficult, on account of the foul ground an either sicte, and the violence of the ebb and flood tides, which is caused by the uneven ness of the bottom.
Melbourne was first colonized in 1835, and received its name from lord Melbourne, then the British prime minister, in 1837. It became the seat of a bishop in 1847, and in 1851 the capital of the newly-formed colony of Victoria. The discovery of gold in Vic toria in 185'1, which gave such a surprising impetus to the material prosperity of Mel bourne, is treated of under VICTORIA..