Australia. 
BY LYMAN LEE, B.A. 
Read before the Hamilton Association March Sth, 1909. 
— 
k USTRALIA is an island continent of the southern 
a hemisphere, south-east of Asia, between latitude 
10 41 and 39° 11’ South, and longitude 113° 5/ 
and 153 16 Kast. Its greatest length from west to east 
is 2,400 miles, and greatest breadth from north to south 
1,700 to 1,900 miles. Its area is about one-half that of 
South America as the next larger continent, and ten times 
that of Borneo as the next smaller island. 
In the mutual relations of itself to the ocean—a point 
of vast importance to so large a mass of land—Australia is 
decidedly inferior to any one of the grand divisions of the 
globe. It is not indented by the sea, as is North America 
on the east, or Asia on the east and south, or Hurope on 
all sides but one. Again, as to navigable channels between 
the coast and the interior, Australia is not to be compared 
even to Africa with its Nile and its Zambesi, its Niger and 
its Congo, its Gambia and its Senegal, and its many other 
small arteries of communication. 
It comprises Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, 
South Australia, West Australia, and the adjacent island 
of Tasmania, all of which were federated in the common- 
wealth of Australia on 1st January, 1go1. 
‘The area and the population (exclusive of aborigines) 
of the different states comprising the commonwealth in 
1go1, when the last census appears to have heen taken, were 
as follows : ; 
47 
