OF AUSTRALASIA. . .31. 



igneous rocks older than Silurian have yet been noticed here in situ though pebbles 

 of diorite occur in the Upper Silurian conglomerates. But in New Zealand, granites of 

 pre-Silurian age have been observed. Granite forms the summit of Mount Kosciusko, 

 which is 7,351 feet above searlevel, and the highest mountain in Australia; and several 

 of the other high mountains on the Dividing Range are capped with Tertiary basalt. 

 This great coast-range was greatly disturbed by basaltic eruptions during the Tertiary 

 period. Victoria, especially in the south-western portion, was the scene of great volcanic 

 activity. No less than seventy-nine extinct points of eruption occur there. Some of 

 these are cone-shaped hills with crater basins, and are built up of basaltic lava, scoricc 

 and ashes, and from them large flows of lava have spread over the country for many 

 miles around. There are no recent volcanoes in Australia ; in New Zealand, however, 

 most interesting volcanic agencies are active at the present day. 



It would be impossible in this brief description of the geology of Australasia to 

 give due mention of the work of those men of science who have contributed to the 

 achievement of the present knowledge of the subject. Dampier, in 1688, wrote of the 

 western coast of Australia "the land is of a dry, sandy soil, except you make wells;" 

 and most of the early explorers made only similar allusions to the rocks observed by 

 them. Nor is this superficial opinion to be wondered at, considering that the science of 

 geology is but one hundred years old. 



But our knowledge of Australasian geology upon a systematic basis is due chiefly 

 to the labours of Darwin, Strzelecki, Rev. H. B. Clarke (who has been called " the 

 Nestor among Australian workers in the field of natural science"), Jukes, Dana, Stutchbury, 

 Selwyn, Daintree, Aplin, Gould, Haast, Hochstetter, Gregory, Hardman, Tennison-Woods, 

 Denton, and many others still engaged upon the Geological Surveys in the different colonies. 



CLIMATE AND RAIN- FALL. 



I ~*O the physical geographer, Australia presents conditions quite different from those of 

 * the Northern Hemisphere. Compared with other countries it is not an island, for it 

 has an area equal to that of the United 'States, and nearly equal to that of Europe; and it 

 is not a continent, for it is surrounded with water ; and in some old books it is still "a fifth 

 quarter of the globe." It lies in mid-ocean, as far from other continents as it can be, its 

 eastern coast being exactly midway between the Cape of Good Hope and Chili. It extends 

 in longitude for 2,400 miles, and in latitude it extends from 10 to 40 south latitude 

 a range which affords space for every climate except that of extreme cold. \\ ith its 

 7,000 miles of coast-line, those who sent out the first colony had a large choice, and it 

 is a curious fate that the nation whose progress depended upon coal, should, all uncon- 

 scious of the fact, send the founders of Australia to the centre of the greatest coal-field 

 in the Southern Hemisphere. Later on, another pioneer party went to Western 

 Australia ; a third to South Australia ; and then the parent colony split up into three 

 namely, Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales, making five colonies of the whole 

 of Australia; of these, the areas, avoiding fractions, are as follows Victoria, 90,000 

 square miles; New South Wales, 310,000 square miles; Queensland, 670,000 square miles; 

 South Australia, 904,000 square miles ; \Vestern Australia, 976,000 square miles ; making 



