Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 20.djvu/512

WESTERGAARD. Zendavesta, or the Religious Books of the Zoroastrians (1852-54).

 WEST'ERLY. A town, including several villages, in Washington County, R. I., 44 miles southwest of Providence, on the Pawcatuck River, and on the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad (Map: Rhode Island, A 4). It is the centre of large granite-quarrying and farming interests, and manufactures cotton and woolen goods, thread, printing presses, etc. There is a public library with more than 15,000 volumes. The water-works are owned by the town. Watch Hill, within the town limits, on the coast, is a. popular summer resort, being known for its good bathing. Westerly was settled in 1661 and was known as Misquamicutt until 1669, when it was incorporated under its present name. Population, in 1890, 6813; in 1900, 7.541. Consult Denison, Westerly and Its Witnesses for 250 Years (Providence, 1878).

 WEST'ERN,. The heroine of Fielding's Tom Jones. The tyranny of her father, the squire, drives her into various hazardous performances, but she is finally happily married to the title-character of the story. She is one of the most sympathetic, to modern readers, of all Fielding's personages, and as such became in 1886 the title-character and leading role in Robert Buchanan's stage adaptation of the tale.

 WESTERN,. A typical eighteenth-century English country squire in Fielding's Tom Jones; brutal and selfish, but attached to the daughter whom be yet constanty maltreats.

 WESTERN AUSTRALIA. A State of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the continent. It is bounded on the north, west, and south by the Indian Ocean, and on the east by South Australia. Western Australia is the largest of the Australian States, having an area of 975,920 square miles.

The interior presents no well-marked surface features. It consists mainly of undulating sand or sandstone plateaus of no great elevation, their level surfaces being broken by isolated sandstone ranges, sand hills, and wind-blown ridges. The southeastern part of the State consists of a limestone plateau about 200 miles wide and ending in a line of steep cliffs running for several hundred miles along the southern coast. The only real mountains in the State are the Stirling and Darling ranges along the southwest coast. But their highest elevation does not exceed 3600 feet. The extreme northern part of the State, known as the Kimberley District, consists of elevated plains in the interior, falling toward the coast in several lines of precipitous and rugged escarpments broken by deep ravines. The coasts of Western Australia are very little indented and afford scarcely any good harbors. Along the south coast not a single stream enters the sea for about 600 miles from the eastern boundary. On the west coast, however, there are a number of rivers, some of considerable size, such as the Murchison, Gascoyne, Ashburton, and Fitzroy. Most of the smaller streams are little more than storm-water channels, dry the greater part of the year. In the interior there are a number of so-called lakes, which in the dry season are nothing but mud flats covered with incrustations of salt.

The climate is healthful and pleasant and very dry, so that the heat, though intense, is not oppressive. The range of temperature is considerable, and frost may occur in winter. The annual rainfall is between 30 and 40 inches in the extreme south-western and northeastern sections, between 10 and 20 inches along the western coast, and less than 10 inches in the great interior. The south-eastern plateau is covered with rich grass during the wet season, and good grazing land is also found in the upper valleys of the western rivers. The southwestern section of the State is a great forest region, in which the eucalyptus grows to an immense height. The interior, how- ever, consists mainly of sandy and stony desert, partly barren, partly covered with acacia scrub and spiny grass, and almost destitute of surface water.

Large areas in the north and south are of ancient formation, chiefly Paleozoic in the north, and older crystalline rocks in the south, Were there are immense outcrops of granite with auriferous quartz. These areas are surrounded by vast deposits of Tertiary sandstone occupying the central interior and western coast region. The chief mineral is gold, and a broad belt of gold-bearing reefs runs parallel with the coast from Coolgardie in the south to the Kimberley region in the north.

The chief source of income is the gold mines. Gold was discovered in the Kimberley district in 1882, and in the Yilgarn district in 1887. Progress in mining, however, was at first slow, and in 1891 the year's product was' valued at only £115,182. The year following, however, the Coolgardie discoveries were made, and mining rapidly developed at that point, so that in 1896 the value of the product had increased to £1,068,807. In 1896 water was obtained farther east at Kalgoorlie, and this became the most active gold-mining centre. Subsequently mining developed in the Mount Margaret and a number of other districts. In 1901 the gold output was valued at £7,235,652, or nearly half of the total product for the Australian Commonwealth.

Except along the southwestern coast agriculture has made little progress. In a large part of the country the rainfall is inadequate for the maturing of crops. There has, however, been a marked increase in the crop acreage, since the development of gold-mining. In 1901 there were 216,824 acres under crops. .bout half of this was hay (from wheat and oats) and the larger part of the remainder was wheat. At the end of 1901 6,815,334 acres had been alienated or were in process of alienation. The difficulty in obtaining water also seriously limits the pastoral industry. In 1901 there were in the State 2,542,844 sheep, 394,580 cattle, and 73,830 horses. There arc over 3000 camels, these animals being used as beasts of burden.

In June, 1902, there were 2,143 miles of railway in operation, of which 629 miles were private. No other Australian State has so large a mileage of privately owned lines. The construction of the private lines was encouraged, however, by Government grants of land. In 1901 a net profit of nearly 1 per cent, was realized on the Government railways.

The Governor is appointed by 