Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/870

Rh 838 MELBOURNE about 200 acres of land, sloping down to the banks of the river, and laid out with great taste and skill. Albert Park, about 500 acres in extent, is not so elaborately laid out, but contains a small lake, which is much used for boating purposes, as the bay is stormy and exposed. Studley Park, a favourite place for picnics, is a romantic corner on a bend of the upper Yarra, of about 200 acres extent, left entirely in a state of nature. Besides these parks each suburb has its own &quot; gardens &quot; of moderate extent. At Flemington a large reserve is devoted to racing purposes, where in November the race for the Melbourne Cup is held, the great racing carnival of Australia, attended by about 100,000 persons. Ths shipping of Melbourne is very considerable. In 1880 about 1500 vessels entered and cleared again, their tonnage being 900,000. Nearly all the intercolonial and a small proportion of the foreign vessels ascend the Yarra and unload in the heart of the city. The river was originally navigable for vessels of only 9 feet draught ; but of late years the channel has been deepened so much that vessels drawing 16 feet can ascend with safety. Great works are now in operation by which the course is to be straightened and further deepened ; and the quays which line the river banks will be maie accessible to the large vessels which now have to lie in the bay off the Sandridge and Williamstown piers. Shipbuilding is a comparatively unimportant industry, but a great deal of repairing is done ; the graving dock at Williamstown is able to hold the largest vessels which enter the port. The total values of the imports of Melbourne for 1879 and 1880 were respectively 15,035,000 and 14,557,000, and of the exports 12,454,000 and 15,954,000. In 1881 Melbourne contained 2469 factories, employ ing 38,141 hands, and converting 8,012,745 worth of raw material into 13,384,836 worth of finished articles. The leading products are leather, flour, clothing, furniture, boots, carriages, preserved meats, ales, soap, candles, cigars, ironwork, jewellery, jams, confectionery, biscuits, and woollens. The city is abundantly supplied with newspapers, includ ing three morning and three evening dailies. Two reviews are published. The climate of Melbourne is exceptionally fine, the only drawback being the occasional hot winds which blow from the north for two or three days at a time, and raise the temperature to an uncomfortable extent. But the propor tion of days when the sky is clear and the air dry and mild is large. The mean annual temperature is 57, which would make the climate of Melbourne analogous to that of Madrid, Marseilles, or Verona, but without the extremes experienced in those places. Snow falls every year in Italy, while it is unknown in Melbourne ; and the highest temperature reached there in summer is below that of the cities mentioned. As a field for emigration from European countries, Mel bourne offers many advantages to the industrious mechanic or labourer. The cost of living is about the same as in London. Pients are higher, and furniture and utensils dearer ; but butcher meat, bread, and clothes are cheaper. There is no city where more has been done for the working-classes or where they have made so good a use of their advantages. Many of their efforts at government (for they have all the power in their hands) have been ill- advised, but individually they have exhibited a prudence of which the community reaps the fruits. It is one of the peculiar features of Melbourne that about three out of every four mechanics who have reached middle life own the nsat cottages they occupy. History. The city of Melbourne is without exception the most striking instance of the aptitude of the Anglo-Saxon race for colonization. It was not till the opening years of the present century that the first European sailed through the narrow entrance to Port Phillip, and it was only in 1835 that the white man made his habitation there. In that year John Fawkner sailed up the Yarra in his little vessel the &quot; Enterprise,&quot; laden with materials for a settlement; he was stopped by a slight waterfall in a valky where dense groves of wattle trees all in bloom loaded the air with perfume, and where flocks of white cockatoos whirled aloft when the first stroke of the axe resounded in the forest. This spot is now the centre of a great city 10 miles in length, 6 in breadth, covering an area of 45,000 acres, and peopled by 283.000 persons. So rapid and solid a growth, at a distance from the mother country of the whole extent of the earth, is an example of colonizing enter prise altogether without parallel. The settlement was at first called by the native name &quot; Dootigala,&quot; but a desire for distinguished patronage caused the portion on the sea-shore, which was then esteemed the more important, to be called &quot; Williamstown,&quot; after King William IV., while the little collection of huts some 3 or 4 miles inland was named &quot;Melbourne,&quot; in honour of the prime minister Lord Melbourne. For two years a constant stream of squatters with their sheep flowed in from Tasmania; then numerous &quot; overlanders &quot; drove their flocks from the Sydney side across the Murray and settled near Port Phillip. Captain Lonsdale was sent by the Sydney Government to act as police magistrate, but in 1838 Mr Latrobe was placed in charge with the title of superintendent. As the squatters prospered Melbourne increased in size, so that in 1841 it contained 11,000 inhabitants. A period of depression occurred in 1843, followed by several years of the greatest prosperity, till, in 1851, gold was discovered in New South Wales. The district of Port Phillip became infected by the excitement ; many parties scoured that part of the country in search of the precious met;*!, and six weeks after the first discovery of it there the great riches of Ballarat were made known. Within a year from that time a hun dred thousand men had landed in the colony in order to proceed to the diggings; for several years after the same number landed every twelve months; and Melbourne increased in population from 30,000 to 100,000 in the course of two or three years. During the year of the gold discoveries, the Port Phillip district was separated from New South Wales, and formed into a separate colony with the name Victoria. In 1855 the British Government granted to it a complete autonomy ; Melbourne became the capital of the new colony. (A. SU. ) MELBOURNE, WILLIAM LAMB, SECOND VISCOUNT (1779-1848), second son of the first Viscount Melbourne, was bora 15th March 1779. After completing his course at Trinity College, Cambridge, he studied law at the university of Glasgow, entered Lincoln s Inn in 1797, and was called to the bar in 1804. In 1805 he married Lady Caroline Ponsonby, daughter of the eail of Be?s- borough, who after her separation from him acquired some fame as a novelist, and was also a friend of Lord Byron. On entering parliament the same year Lamb joined the opposition under Fox, of whom he was an ardent admirer ; but his Liberal tendencies were never of a very decided character, and he not u infrequently gave his support to Lord Liverpool during that statesman s long tenure of office. During the short ministry of Canning in 1827 he was chief secretary for Ireland, but he afterwards for a time adhered to the small remnant of the party who supported the duke of Wellington. The influence of Melbourne as a politician dates from his elevation to the peerage in 1828. Disagreeing with the duke of Wellington on the question of parliamentary reform, he in 18.30 entered the ministry of Grey as home secretary. For the discharge of the difficult and multifarious duties of tins office at such a critical time he was decidedly defici nt both in insight and in energy, but his political succ* ss was totally independent of his official capacity ; and, when the ministry of Grey was wrecked on the Irish question, Melbourne was chosen to succeed him. Almost immedi ately he had to give place to a Conservative ministry under Peel, but, the verdict of the country being in his favour, he resumed office in 1835. The period of his ministry was wholly uneventful, and for a considerable time before he resigned in 1841 he had lost the confidence of the