Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/238

Rh 216 VICTORIA 200 miles) rises in the Pyrenees. The upper part flows through a plain, to the right agricultural and to the left auriferous, containing nearly forty thriving towns, includ ing Sandhurst and Castlemaine. In the lower part of the valley the rainfall is small and droughts are frequent, but farmers are steadily pushing out into it, as the land is very fertile. Recent legislation has provided for the formation of irrigation trusts in these districts of rich soil but small rainfall. To the west of the Loddon is the Avoca river (140 miles). It is of slight volume, and though it flows to wards the Murray it loses itself in marshes and salt lagoons before reaching that river. The rivers which flow southwards into the ocean are numerous. The Snowy river rises in New South Wales and in Victoria flows entirely through wild and almost wholly unoccupied territory. The Tambo (120 miles long), which rises in the heart of the Australian Alps, crosses the Gippsland plains where the land is good, but only a small portion is occupied. The Mitchell river, rising also among the Australian Alps, is navigable to a limited ex tent. Its lower valley is being rapidly occupied by thriv ing hop plantations. The Latrobe is a deep clear stream flowing through level country. The Yarra rises in the &quot; Black Spur &quot; of the Australian Alps. Emerging in a deep valley from the ranges, it follows a sinuous course through the undulating plains called the &quot;Yarra Flats,&quot; which are wholly enclosed by hills, on whose slopes are some of the best vineyards of Australia ; it finds its way out of the Flats between high and precipitous but well- wooded banks, and finally reaches Port Phillip Bay below Melbourne. Owing to its numerous windings its course through that city and its suburbs is at least thirty miles. Nearer to the sea its waterway, formerly available for vessels drawing 16 feet, has now been deepened so as to be available for vessels drawing 20 feet. The Bar won, farther west, is a river of considerable length but little volume, flowing chiefly through pastoral lands. The Hop kins and Glenelg (280 miles) both water the splendid pas toral lands of the west, the lower course of the former passing through the fertile district of Warrnambool, well known throughout Australia as a potato-growing region. Lakes. In the west there are Lakes Corangamite and Colac, due north of Cape Otway. The former is intensely salt ; the latter is fresh, having an outlet for its waters. Lakes Tyrrel and Hindmarsh lie in the plains of the north-west. In summer they are dried up, and in winter are again formed by the waters of rivers that have no outlet^ In the east are the Gippsland lakes, formed by the waters of the Latrobe, Mitchell, and Tambo being dammed back by the sandhills of the Ninety Mile Beach. They are connected with Bass Strait by a narrow and shifting channel through a shallow bar ; the Government of Victoria has done a great deal of late years to deepen the entrance and make it safer. The upper lake is called Lake Wellington ; a narrow passage leads into Lake Victoria, which is joined to a wider expanse called Lake King. These are all fresh water lakes, and are visited by tourists for the sake of their scenery, which, though monotonous, has a certain impressiveness. The surrounding country is being rapidly settled and utilized. Climate. Victoria enjoys an exceptionally fine climate. Roughly speaking, about one-half of the days in the year present a bright cloudless sky, with a bracing and dry atmosphere, pleasantly warm but not relaxing. These days are mainly in the autumn and spring. Dur ing the last twenty years there have been on an average 131 days annually on which rain has fallen more or less (chiefly in winter), but rainy clays do not exceed thirty in the year. The average yearly rainfall is about 26 inches. The disagreeable feature of the Victorian climate is the occurrence of north winds, which blow on an average about sixty days in the year. In winter they are cold and dry, and have a slightly depressing effect. But in summer they are hot and dry, and generally bring with them disagreeable clouds of dust. The winds themselves blow for periods of two or three days at a time, and if the summer has six or eight such periods it becomes relaxing and produces languor. These winds cease with extraordinary suddenness, being replaced in a minute or two by a cool and bracing breeze from the south. The temperature often falls 40 or 50 Fahr. in an hour. The maximum temperature occurs in February, averaging 105 6 Fahr. in the shade. The mini mum is in July, when the thermometer registers as low as 30. The mean for the whole year is 57 3. The temperature never falls be low freezing-point, except for an hour or two before sunrise in the coldest month. Snow has twice been known to fall in Melbourne for a few minutes, in 1849 and 1882. It is common enough, how ever, on the plateau : Ballarat, which is over 1000 feet high, always has a few snow storms, and the roads to Omeo among the Australian Alps lie under several feet of snow in the winter. The general healthiness of the climate is shown by the fact that the average death-rate for the last five years has been only 14 37 per thousand of the population. The rainfall of the colony varies considerably. On the table-land it averages about 40 inches, at Melbourne 25 44 inches, along the Murray basin 20 inches, and in the &quot; Wim- mera &quot; or north-west corner not more than 15 inches. Victoria rests throughout on a bed of coarse granite, which is Geology, exposed in many parts by the denudation of the overlying strata. Above this lies a bed of Silurian rocks, which seems to have at one time extended over the whole area, and still forms the surface of a great portion of the colony, especially in the north-east. Other Palaeozoic strata are represented by only one small patch of Devonian at Mount Tambo in the Australian Alps, and by small isolated beds of Carboniferous strata along the valley of the Mitchell river. The Mesozoic strata overlie the Silurian along the coast, being represented by beds of Upper New Red Sandstone of considerable thickness. These extend from Cape Otway as far east as Corner Inlet, and sections of them are prominent features where the coasts are rocky. The other Mesozoic strata are absent. Miocene beds occur in patches near Ballarat, near Warrnambool, and in some parts of Gippsland. These are unimportant, however, compared with the Pliocene formations, which cover a very large part of the colony, notably the great plains of the Wimmera and the Murray valley. They also occur in smaller areas over the Silurian rock, either as cappings of prominences, that were left as islands when the waves of Post-Tertiary seas washed away the rest of the beds or else as &quot;leads,&quot; i.e., the beds carved out of Silurian strata by rivers of Mjsozoic periods, but filled in during Pliocene times by deposits of debris from the mountains. These have been protected by their sunken position when the great bulk of the Pliocene beds were washed away. It is from these old river beds that the alluvial gold of Victoria is got. This gold was evidently at one time contained in veins of auriferous quartz which were worn down and carried into the streams. There the heavy particles of gold gathered in the hollows, forming those collections known to miners as pockets. In some parts of Victoria vast sheets of lava overlie the Pliocene beds. These are most prominent in the south-western coiner. The district round Warrnambool possesses eighty-three extinct volcanoes, and there were probably many more whose craters have been completely denuded. The volcanoes were of no great height, but from them issued sheets of glowing lava, covering the plains for hundreds of square miles. At Ballarat the mining shafts descend through four beds of basalt divided from one another by deposits of clay. These represent four distinct outflows of lava in comparatively recent geologic times. During 1886 665,196 oz. of gold were obtained of the value of Minerals. 2,660,780. The total yield from 1851 to 1886 was 54,393,182 oz. of the value of about 217,570,000. The number of miners is about 26,000, of whom nearly 5000 are Chinese. These devote themselves in nearly equal proportions to alluvial mining and quartz mining. But little is now done in the way of merely surface alluvial digging. The shafts are carried down to the beds of ancient rivers, where the layers of what are called &quot;wash dirt&quot; vary in thickness from 1 to 12 feet, yielding from ^ to 3 oz. per cubic yard. Quartz mining is rapidly increasing in extent, though the total quantity of gold ob tained is steadily decreasing and the expense of getting it is increas ing, for the shafts are becoming of excessive depth. One at Stawcll penetrates 2409 feet below the surface ; two others exceed 2000 ; and there are in all 17 shafts each over 1000 feet in depth. The average yield of this quartz has been of late about 10 dwts. to the ton. About one-third of the area of Victoria is supposed to be auri ferous, but only 1300 square miles have as yet been worked. Be sides gold, Victoria produces a little tin, copper, and antimony, and, in still smaller quantities, zinc, lead, cobalt, bismuth, and manga nese. Iron ore is being smelted, but the industry has not yet reached a paying condition. Great efforts are being made to dis cover coalfields or to open up those that are known to exist. The total value of the coal raised in the colony up to date (1888) is only 17,000. A promising 5-foot scam is, however, now being worked in Gippsland. The native trees belong chiefly to the iWyrtaceee, being largely Flora, composed of Eucalypti or gum trees. There are several hundred