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the nose, seem clearly to indicate that some portion of the race is of Chinese or Japanese descent.

TASMANIA.

Tasmania, or Van Dieman's Land, just south of Australia, between 40 deg. 40 min. and 43 deg. 38 min. south latitude, and longitude 144 deg. 33 min. and 148 deg. 28 min. east, a group of some seventeen islands occur; but one of them is of any size or importance at present.

Tasmania was discovered and located by Tasman in 1642, but was re-located and taken possession of by the English in 1803. The island has an area of 22,629 square miles, with a population of 110,000.

The island is of a similar formation to Australia, although the soil is much more fertile, and without any of the desert wastes of the larger island. The mountain ranges are extensive, but not of very great height. The forests are immense, the eucalyptus and acacia, in all their many varieties, growing in the greatest luxuriance.

Of minerals, Tasmania has an abundance-gold, copper, iron and coal mines are worked at a considerable profit.

The climate is temperate; all the fruits, vegetables and cereals are cultivated, forming one of the principal exports of the group.

The natives are of the same type as the aborigines of New Zealand and Australia, and are now nearly extinct.

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CHAPTER VI.

ISLANDS

T

The place is all awave with trees,
Limes, myrtles, purple-beaded;
Acacias having drunk the lees

Of the night-dew, faint-headed;

And wan, grey olive-woods, which seem
The fittest foliage for a dream.

JAVA.

E. B. BROWNING (An Island).

HE Island of Java, with its 52,000 square miles,

peopled by nearly eighteen millions of inhabitants-the "land of fire," the home of the eruptic volcano and earthquake-has long been the subject of interesting study for the historian and scientist.

Here we find, besides innumerable smaller ones, one of the largest volcanic craters in the world, having a circumference around its edge of about twelve miles. In 1772 this crater was in active force, casting its ashes and scoria over a great tract of country. Thousands of inhabitants lost their lives-either caught in their homes by the burning lava, or suffocated by the smoke, ashes and sulphur. The heavens were lit up for hundreds of miles around with a glare only equalled by that of the aurora borealis, the surrounding seas liter

ally covered with the finer particles of pumice and ashes, while the dust and smoke hung in and darkened the heavens for days afterwards.

Another eruption took place in 1832, with the loss of nearly thirty thousand lives, and again in 1883, when it is supposed one hundred thousand people were destroyed, with a vast waste created over a beautiful and thriving agricultural country.

GENERAL FEATURES.

The topographical features of the island, its chains of mountains and plateaus, with the valleys lying between, the latter well watered by meandering rivers, are nearly all taken advantage of by a skillful, agricultural people. The waters from abundant rainfalls are treasured in reservoirs on the higher plateaus, and held in reserve for the drier periods. They are thus enabled to reap two crops per annum, and place their plantations in almost continuous bloom. On the cultivated lands, immense quantities of coffee, sugar, rice and cotton are grown, with all the fruits of the tropics, as well as the clove, nutmeg and cinnamon, and other spices.

Included in the flora of the native forests are the gutta percha, toa tomano, camphor, sandal, satin-wood and mahogany trees.

The agricultural methods adopted by the natives, with the use of irrigation, was imparted to them by the Hindoos and others of the East India countries, who visited this island in great numbers many years previous to the ninth century.

The inhabitants at present are hospitable and intelligent-partaking of the higher class of Arabs in

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