Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/535

Rh W E S W E S the Early English style from the designs of Sir Gilbert Scott, and has a massive central tower with four pinnacles. The site of the former church is marked by a cross. Attached to the church of St James, also a modern structure in the Early English style, there is a library of 1800 volumes. In the centre of the old village there is an old court-house, erected in 1G62, now belonging to the marquis of Salisbury as lord of the manor. Croxteth Hall, the seat of the earl of Sefton, is in the immediate vicinity. The population of the urban sanitary district (area 5561 acres) was 27,292 in 1871 and 33,611 in 1881. In Saxou times West Derby gave its name to a hundred. Edward the Confessor had a castle there, the site of which is still called the Castle Hill. In 1206 the manor was bestowed on Edmund, earl of Lancaster. When Henry cle Bolingbroke, duke of Lancaster, became king, this and other manors reverted to the crown. In the 4th of Charles I. it was granted to various citizens of London, who resold it in 1639 to James, Lord Stanley and Strange. The property of the Stanleys was afterwards partly sequestrated and partly alienated. . WESTERN AUSTRALIA. This British colony, the portion of Australia that lies to the west of 129 E. long., forming considerably more than one-third of the whole, has an area of 1,060,000 square miles, is 1400 miles in length and 850 in breadth, and has a coast-line of 3500 miles. It is divided into five districts Central, Central Eastern, South-Eastern, North, and Kimberley. The Central or settled district, in the south-west, is divided into twenty-six counties. Apart from the coast lands, the map presents almost a blank, as the major portion is practically a dry waste of stone and sand, relieved by a few shallow salt lakes. The rivers of the south are small, the Blackwood being the most considerable. To the north of this are the Murray, the well-known Swan, the Moore, the Greenough, and the Murchison. The last is 400 miles long. Sharks Bay receives the Gascoigne (200 miles long), with its tributary the Lyons. Still farther north, where the coast trends eastward, the principal rivers are the Ashburton, the Fortescue, and the De Grey. Kimberley district to the north-east has some fine streams, the Fitzroy and Ord and their tributaries, on some of which (the Mary, Elvira, Arc.) are the gold-fields, 250 miles south of Cambridge Gulf. The Darling mountain range is in the south-west, Mount William reaching 3000 feet ; in the same quarter are Toolbrunup (3341 feet), Ellen s Peak (3420), and the Stirling and Victoria ranges. Gardner and Moresby are flat-topped ranges. Mount Elizabeth rises behind Perth. Hampton tableland overlooks the Bight. In the north-west are Mount Bruce (4000 feet), Augustus (3580), Dalgeranger (2100), Barlec, Pyiton, and the Capricorn range. Kimberley has the Leopold, M Clintock, Albert Edward, Hard man, Geikie, Napier, Lubbock, Oscar, Mueller, and St George ranges. The lake district of the interior is in the Gibson and Victoria deserts from 24&quot; to 32 S. The lakes receive the trifling drainage of that low region. Almost all of them arc salt from the presence of saline marl. Climate. With little or no cold anywhere, the heat of summer over the whole area is considerable. Western Australia differs from the country to the cast in having no extensive ranges to collect vapour, while the trade winds blow off the dry land instead &amp;lt;if from the ocean ; for these two reasons the climate is very dry. Thunderstorms often supply almost the only rainfall in the interior. The south-western corner, the seat of settlements, is the only portion where rains can be depended on for cultivation ; but even there few places have a rainfall of 40 inches. As one goes north ward the moisture lessens. The north-west and all the coast along to Kimberley, with most of that district, suffer much from dryness. The north-east conies in summer within the sphere of the north west monsoons, though just over the low coast-range few showers are known. The south coast, exposed to polar breezes, with un interrupted sea, has to endure lengthened droughts. In the Swan liver quarter the rainfall is in winter, being brought by north-west winds, and summer days have little moisture. AVhile the south wind cools the settled region, it conies over the parched interior to the northern lands. The hot wind of Swan river is from the east and north-east ; but it is from the south in summer to Kimberley and the north-west. In one season the land breeze is hot, in another cool, but always dry. In the year 1885 Perth had a rainfall of 29 inches with an evaporation of 66. The temperature ranged from 34 to 109 in the shade. In 1835 there fell 32 inches on 100 days, while Albany had 32 on 138 days, Augusta 46 on 122 Jays, and York less than 18 on 81 days. Geraldton port received the same as York, but on 63 days, while Cossack, the pearl port of the north-west, had but 9J on 18 days throughout the year, Northampton showed 21f, Beverley 14f, and Eucla 9^ inches. Geology. The base of Western Australia is of granite and its kindred formations, which underlie Silurian or more ancient rocks. Not only are the principal elevations so composed, but throughout the vast extent of bare and sterile land eastward and inland granite is most prominent, rising through recent deposits in knobs and tables onward into South Australia. It is the rock of the Australian desert. The great lake district is a depression, with a granite floor permeated with igneous veins, surrounded by isolated hills and ranges of the Primary and metamorphic rocks. King George s Sound and the mountains around are granite, as also are disjointed ranges northward to Sharks Bay. The streams in the north-west, as well as the Lyons and Gascoigne, take their rise among the old igneous and Palaeozoic formations. Kimberley is full of similar rocks. The upper Irwin has garnetiferous granite. Granite, both on the south and western shores, supports the recent deposits of calcareous and arenaceous material. The horizontal sandstone of the interior and the flat-topped hills of sandstone rest upon the granite. The arid region around Sharks Bay, glistening with limestone and sand, has the ancient stone for a foundation, upon which coralline forms built their reefs. All sorts of meta morphic rocks prevail in the Leopold, &quot;Weld, and other ranges of Kimberley. Quartz veins are common in the hills. Cambridge Gulf is lined with quartzose grit embodying rock crystal, and the Blackwood river with gneiss. Porphyry appears at York, on the Murchison, and elsewhere. Blue slate occurs on the Canning at Champion Bay, and on Hampton Plains. Carboniferous rocks are present near the Irwin, Canning, Fitzroy, and Murchison. Mr Hardman traced them north-cast over 1500 square miles, bearing coal plants. Secondary formations are rare: a deposit of Oolite 400 feet thick is reported from the Murchison. Tertiary beds of limestone are more plentiful, generally seen near the coast ; others of a coralline nature are more recent. Arenaceous lime stone cliffs rise two to four hundred feet along the southern shore for hundreds of miles, and similar stone is seen at the junction of the Fitzroy and the Margaret. The spiriferous sandstone on the Denison Plains of Kimberley, like that of the Moresby range, is doubtless Palaeozoic. The desert sandstone, so easily decomposed to furnish moving sand-dunes, is regarded as Miocene by Prof. Tate. Freemautle stands upon a recent calcareous sand stone. Roeburne is similarly situated. The south-west abounds in calcareous accretions. Cape Arid stops with its granite the progress of Tertiary beds. Tertiary agates and jaspers occur on the Ord and the Ashburton. Three terraces lead from the calcareous mud of the north-west shore to the granite of Mount Bruce. Nuyt s Land is probably Pliocene. Volcanic rocks of various ages have burst through other formations, from Kimberley down to King George s Sound. Basalt runs under the limestone of Bunbury, and even rises in pillars; it is in scoriaceous dykes at King Sound. Columnar greenstone occurs about Cape Lecuwin and Cape Natu- laliste, while greenstone dykes yield copper in the Champion Bay district. There is a sort of Giant s Causeway at Geographe Bay. Dam pier Archipelago, Nickol Bay, the sources of the Fortescue and the De Grey, Glenelg river, Camden harbour, Mount Waterloo, Fitzroy river, and the gold field all show traces of volcanic action. Of the geology of three-fourths of the colony, however, we know scarcely anvthing. The presence of a new carbonaceous mineral called cliftonite has been recently determined by Mr L. Fletcher in a meteorite brought by the Rev. Mr Nicholai from Western Australia. Minerals. The earliest mines were of lead and copper in Victoria district, the ore being sent to Geraldton, the port of Champion Bay, 30 miles from the Northampton mines of silver, lead, and copper. Berkshire valley has in addition plumbago, the Irwin antimony, and Woongong silver. The Geraldine lead and silver ores were first worked in 1845, and produced 43,000 in 1878. Wheal Fortune and Tortura mines are of silver-lead ; Gelira, Wheel Alpha, and Narra Narra of copper. Iron ores are abundant; they are magnetic at Mount Magnet. Coal has not yet been found in any quantity. Carboniferous rocks are seen in several places, and fair specimens of coal have been obtained. A semi-bituminous mineral near the Swan and the Murray yields a pale oil, which would serve to varnish wood. Gold, long looked for, has been found in Kim berley; and diggers rushed to the country about the Margaret, Mary, and Elvira rivers. The majority did not find returns equal to expen diture ; but auriferous quartz of great richness has been reported recently. The proclaimed gold-Held lies between 16 and 19i S., 126 and 129 E. Building stone is found of many varieties.