1. AREAS AND DIVISIONS. Aus tralia, the largest island in the world, is of con tinental dimensions, with an area of approxi mately 2,946,691 square miles. The smaller island, Tasmania, which is now included in the general term °Australia,* as well as in the fed eral Commonwealth, and has an expanse of 26,215 square miles, is 150 miles south of Aus tralia. The total area of the federated states is thus 2,962,906 square miles. This does not in clude British New Guinea, a territory of about 90,540 square miles, which is practically under the direction of the Commonwealth. The area of the respective states is —Western Australia, 975,876 square miles; South Australia, 380,070 square miles; Queensland, 668,497 square miles; New South Wales, 309,175 square miles; Vic toria, 87,884 square miles Tasmania, 26,215 square miles. The Northern Territory, which now is under the Commonwealth government, is 523,620 square miles. With the exception of a small space in the northwest part of the con tinent the whole of the land has been more or less explored and mapped and a fairly accu rate idea may be formed of its physical features, though new facts are naturally frequently dis closed with the gradual advance of settlement over a sparsely populated country. Population of the island, exclusive of aborigines, estimated for 1915 was 5,000,000. The coast-line of Aus tralia is somewhat less than 8,000 miles. Its widest part from east to west is 2,400 miles, and its deepest from north to south nearly 2,000 miles. The configuration of the island in places is so irregular that political terminology of some of the states is misleading. Victoria, for example, is more southerly than South Australia.
Geology.— The east coast of Australia is mostly rugged and rocky, and fringed with many islets. Part of the south coast is low and sandy, but on other portions are bold cliffs ris ing several hundred feet sheer from the sea. The north and west coasts are generally de pressed and scenically uninteresting, with mo notonous sandhills. The interior, so far as explored, is largely composed of rocky tracts and sandy plains with little or no surface water, though thousands of artesian bores have re vealed the presence of underground currents, which fertihze the soil, and transform deserts into highly productive areas. The whole con
tinent is an irregular plain with high ridges in the east, and a marked depression in the centre, in some parts beneath sea-level. The base of the table-land is granite, which appears on the surface on the southern and western sides. Si lurian rocks are prominent in South Australia, where unmistakable marks of glacial action have recently been discovered. In the south east and east the rocks are volcanic, Silurian, carbonaceous and carboniferous; the coal de posits on the eastern and parts of the western coasts are extensive, and brown coal has been found in South Australia, but at too great depths to be profitably worked, at a long dis tance from the seaboard.
Minerals, etc.— West of the Dividing Range are extensive plains largely used for pastoral and for agricultural purposes. The comparatively dry and scrub, or saltbush-cov ered lands in the interior, are in many cases richly mineralized, and succeeding years show that they deserve less and less their old des ignation of °desert.° On one of such °deserts* is situated the famous Broken Hill silver mine in New South Wales, and on others the cele brated Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie gold mines in Western Australia. In various parts of Aus tralia and Tasmania are found, often in pay able quantities (besides the royal metals and coal), tin, as well as nearly all the minor min erals and precious stones; while on the north eastern, northwestern and northern coasts are probably the most extensive and productive pearl-shelling waters known. It has been shown, too, that the monotonous and extensive mallee country everywhere yields profitable returns when farmed under mixed cultivation and grazing systems; while some varieties of the mallee itself contain water-yielding roots long used by the aborigines and capable of sus taining the life of lost travelers.