hops, dairy produce, wool, &c., are among the articles which Nelson claims to contribute to the riches of the world. The great wealth of Nelson, however, lies in its minerals-iron, coal, limestone, lead and copper ores, and gold. Nelson, the capital, is a quiet, pleasant town, built on the shores of a small harbour in Blind Bay.

7. Marlborough is situated in the north-east of South Island. It has an area about equal to that of Hawke's Bay. The country presents a succession of parallel valleys and mountain ranges. Many of the hill slopes are covered with fine forest trees, and the valleys are fertile and well suited for agriculture or pasturage. The chief exports are flax,* wool, and timber. Blenheim, the capital, and Picton, the chief port, are small towns of 1,000 and 800 inhabitants respectively.

8. Westland is a narrow strip of country about 300 miles long by thirty miles wide, on the west coast, between the mountains and the sea. It is chiefly noted for its rich gold-fields. Considerable quantities of timber are also exported. The climate is said to be so uniform that the same clothing can be worn in the hottest day in summer, and the coolest day in winter. Hokitika, the capital, and the centre of the gold-mining districts, is a thriving town of about 3,000 inhabitants.

9. The provincial district of Canterbury covers an area of over 13,000 square miles, of which one-third constitutes a great plain sloping down to the sea. The Canterbury plains are not an interesting part of the country so far as scenery is concerned; but from an agricultural point of view they form one of the finest tracts in the whole colony. Corn, wool, and flax, are the chief productions and exports of this province. Christchurch, the capital, on the Avon, has a population of about 10,000, and Lyttleton, its port, about 3,000.

10. Otago, the southern district, has an area of 24,000 square miles. "It has grand mountains, with glaciers

*The plant from which the flax is obtained is not the common flax plant of Europe, but a species of lily, which grows in all parts of South Island. The fibre is very fine, and the difficulty of cleansing it from the resin only prevents it becoming a great article of commerce.

and Alpine lakes, noble forests, lofty downs suitable for sheep-grazing, and fertile lowlands well adapted for agriculture." The colonists, chiefly Scotch, are for the most part occupied in agriculture and gold-mining. Dunedin, the capital, is the largest and most important city in the colony. The population is about 27,000.

11. New Zealand is a country eminently fitted for the abode and increase of the English race. Its soil yields abundantly, but not without toil; here is sunshine, but tempered with clouds; here the temperature is not so cold as to chill all energy save that of keeping oneself warm, nor so mild as to induce the sleepy languor of the tropics. It is a country in which the Englishman can make a permanent home. In India he makes money—if he can-but returns "home" to spend it. New Zealand the colonist looks upon as another England-an England in the south, only better in all respects than the mother country.

12. The exports from the colony are steadily increasing. In 1875 the value of the exports to England was three and a half million pounds. In 1879 the value had increased to four and a half millions. Three-fourths of this value was due to wool, the remainder principally to wheat, tallow, and gum. No less than £33,500,000 worth of gold was produced in New Zealand from the year 1861 to the end of the year 1877, and gold to the value of more than £1,000,000 is now exported every year.

Maories.-The Maories belong to the brown family of man. It is probable that they came to New Zealand from some of the Polynesian islands. The English found them more advanced in civilisation than the savages of other Polynesian islands. They were skilful hunters and fishers; they had learnt to till the ground, to make clothing, and to build houses; but they were cannibals. Through the influence of Europeans this practice has been abolished, and many of the Maories are now civilised and educated, and some have farms, and others are successful traders.

LESSON

LXXX.

THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO.-AUSTRAL-MALAYSIA.

1. Looking at the map, we observe to the north-west of Australia, and between that continental island and south-east Asia an extensive group of islands. From the prevalent race of people inhabiting them, they are known as the Malay Islands, or the Malay Archipelago. Those portions of the group lying nearest to Asia and Australia have been named respectively Indo-Malaysia and AustralMalaysia. The outlying compact group to the north of these has received the name of Philippines.

2. The Malay Archipelago extends for more than 4,000 miles from east to west, and is nearly 1,400 miles in breadth from north to south. It contains a land area of about three-quarters of a million of square miles. Some of the islands in it are so large that for weeks at a time the voyager may sail along their coasts, and yet see no termination to the primeval forest, and, were he to depend on his own knowledge, might coincide in the belief of the inhabitants that they are vast continents. In the largest of them-Borneo-the whole of the British Isles might be set down, and then be surrounded by a great forest belt.

3. Australia, as we have seen, is a land of heat and little moisture; while the Asiatic shore, on the opposite side of the archipelago is subject to tropical rains. The Malay Islands, lying between these two regions, partake of the character of both. They are not blessed with the glorious atmosphere of the smaller oceanic islands of Polynesia, nor even with the dry, healthy air of the plains of Australia. On the contrary, their atmosphere is as hot and humid as that of the Amazons, though in but few places is it as pestilential as the West Coast of Africa.

4. With but few exceptions, the islands are covered with a sombre vegetation, luxuriant forests clothing them

from the shore to the summits of the highest mountains, and the climate of all of them is uniform and very similar. Timor is, perhaps, an exception to this rule. This island, and the smaller ones surrounding it, are influenced by the dry south-east monsoon, which blows from across the northern parts of Australia from March to November.

5. "The Malay Archipelago is traversed throughout its whole extent by one of the most extensive and continuous volcanic belts upon the globe. Commencing in the northwestern part of Sumatra, beyond the equator, it extends through that island and Java, then through the Lesser Sunda Islands to the east of Timor. Here it turns in a north easterly curve by Banda, Amboyna, and Bouru, to Gilolo and Ternate. Thence turning westward to the northern extremity of Celebes, it bends abruptly to the north, and passes through the entire range of the Philippines, to the extreme north of Luzon.

6. "The number of true volcanic peaks and craters in this belt is very great, and they form a continuous chain with seldom more than an interval of a hundred miles from one to the other. A very large portion of them are in a state of activity, and many have devastated the surrounding country within the historic era. In Sumatra there are five active volcanoes, in Java twenty, in the Lesser Sunda Isles seven, in the Banda and Molucca groups about the same number, in North Celebes and adjacent isles four or five; and in the Philippine Islands more than a dozen. Many of them are perpetually smoking, while others have been frequent in eruption since the occupation of the country by Europeans, and have often been accompanied by disastrous earthquakes."* Hardly less remarkable is it that the districts and islands just outside the volcanic belt are absolutely free from all signs of recent volcanic action.

7. Austral-Malaysia includes the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, Celebes, the Timor group, and the smaller islands lying near. Celebes and most of the Molucca Islands

T

* A. R. Wallace.