File:The British empire- a sketch of the geography, growth, natural and political features of the United Kingdom, its colonies and dependencies (1863) (14750773026).jpg

Identifier: britishempireske00bray (find matches)
Title: The British empire: a sketch of the geography, growth, natural and political features of the United Kingdom, its colonies and dependencies
Year: 1863 (1860s)
Authors: Bray, Caroline (Hennell)), Mrs., (from old catalog)
Subjects:
Publisher: London, Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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tralia, Tasmania, New Zealand, the Aucklands,Norfolk, and other lesser islands. CHAPTER I. AUSTKALIA. Australia, or New Holland, is the largest island in theworld, or rather it forms the sixth of the great continents ofthe globe. Its greatest length, from Cape Byron on the eastto Steep Point on the west, is 2,227 miles; its greatest breadth,from Cape York on the north to Cape Wilson on the south, is1,680 miles. In its configuration the island appears to show the action ofN t l the great seas which surround it. The tremendousFeatures, effect of the unbroken swell of the ocean from thesouth pole exhibits itself in the deep concave or bight of thesouth coast, except where it is protected by Van DiemansLand; while the mighty roll of the Indian Ocean causes acorresponding slope on the north-west: the direction of thenorth-east coast shows the sweep of the Pacific from theAmerican continent, and on the north the unequal action ofthe monsoons has been still more broken by the Asiaticislands.
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SURFACE OF AUSTRALIA. 479 So far as it is yet known, the geological structure of Australiais strikingly uniform, the whole interior appearing to be oftertiary formation. The mountain ranges of the coast belongto the primary and paleozoic series, and all have a generalincline north and south. It was the close similarity betweenthe structure and direction of these mountains and those ofthe Ural Mountains inEussia that led Sir Eoderick Murchison,in 1845, to predict that they would prove to be gold-yielding,six years before any deposit of the precious metal had beenfound. New Guinea and Tasmania are so perfectly similar instructure to Australia, that they are considered to be detachedportions of the continent. Thus the chief mountain range ofAustralia, the Australian Alps, traverses the east coast fromnorth to south, and thence is continued by a chain of moun-tainous islands across Basss Strait to Cape Portland in Tas-mania, dividing the drainage of both countries into easternand western

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