AUSTIN 



482 



AUSTRALIA 



and jobbing center for that groat section. It 

 has an extensive wholesale trade in 1 

 leather goods, groceries, dry goods and drugs. 

 It is a market for live -ton. pain, 



wool and hides and has lanre manufactories 

 including canning plants, oil mills, planing 



mattress factories, soap f:i. 

 many other indus;: 



Austin, first named Waterloo, was settled in 

 1838, the year of the death of Stephen Fuller 

 father of Texas, for whom the city 

 was in 1839 re-named. In that year it was 

 chosen capital of the Republic of Texas, then 

 lately seceded from Mexico. Due to the in- 

 fluence of General Sam Houston, one time 

 governor of the Texan republic, the capital 

 was later removed to Houston. In 1845 Aus- 

 tin was again made the capital, and it retained 

 ionor against three early competitors, 

 Huntsville, Tehuacana Springs and Houston. 

 In 1909 the city adopted the commission form 

 of government. W.E.L. 



AUSTIN, ALFRED (1835-1913), an English 

 poet who succeeded Alfred Tennyson as poet 



laureate in 1896. 

 He was born near 

 Leeds. After 

 graduating at the 

 University of 

 London, he was 

 called to the bar, 

 in 1857, but soon 

 gave up the law 

 for literature. In 

 1870 he wrote a 

 severe criticism 

 ALFRED AUSTIN of Tennyson, 



Poet laureate of England, Browning and 

 who was succeeded by Rob- 

 ert Bridges. other poets of 



the time, in an essay entitled The Poetry of the 

 . His own verse is graceful, but less 

 imaginative than that of the poets he criticised. 

 Among his poetical writings are Songs oj Eng- 

 land, A Tale of True Love and Other Poems 

 (dedicated to Theodore Roosevelt), The Door 

 DJ Humility and Love Poems. He was also the 

 author of a drama, Floddcn F'nhi, which was 

 produced in 1903 at His Majesty's Theater; 

 and of several nature essays. 



AUSTIN, STEPHEN FULLER (1793-1836), the 

 founder of Texas, and one of the two men 

 whom the state has honored by placing their 

 statues in the national Statuary Hall at Wash- 

 ington. His father, Moses Austin (1767-1821), 

 obtained from Mexico the first grant of land 

 for an American colony, but he died before 

 the project could be carried out. The son, 

 however, in 1821 established a colony of sev- 

 eral hundred families on the Brazos River; 

 the principal settlement was named Austin, in 

 his honor. Austin was one of the leaders in 

 demanding recognition for the Americans in 

 Texas from the Mexican government, but he 

 was at first opposed to the movement for in- 

 dependence. In 1835, when it became clear 

 that no concessions would be made by Mexico, 

 he accepted the chief command of the Texan 

 army, but resigned after a few months. He 

 then went to the United States, where he 

 secured money and supplies to aid the Texans. 

 In the next year he was an unwilling candi- 

 date for the presidency of the new Republic 

 of Texas, but was defeated by Samuel Hous- 

 ton, in whose Cabinet he was Secretary of 

 State until his unexpected death on December 

 2, 1836. See TEXAS, subhead History. 



AUSTRALASIA, aws trala' she ah. See 

 OCEANIA. 



University of Melbourne 



.USTRALIA, awstray'lia, the 

 smallest of the five continents, the only one 

 entirely within the southern hemisphere, and 

 the only one which is an island. In name as 

 well as in location it is the southland, for 

 the word is taken directly from the Latin and 



means southern. It is the most detached of 

 the grand divisions, lying between the Indian 

 and the Pacific oceans, far to the southeast 

 of Asia, and as a result has few similarities to 

 any of the other continents in its physical 

 formations or its animal or plant life. Its 



