were supposed to be accumulations of floating wood, are denudation’s
of Miocene deposits containing layers of brown coal with full stems
of trees. These Tertiary deposits are characterized by a rich fauna;
fully developed leaves of poplars, numerous fruits of the mammoth
tree, needles of several conifers, &c., being found in them, thus
testifying to a climate once very much warmer. The only representative
of tree vegetation now is a dwarf willow 1 in. high.
The Lyakhov Islands consist of the Bolshoy (Large), or Blizhniy (Nearest), which is separated by Laptev Strait, 27 m. wide, from Svyatoy Nos of Siberia; Malyi (Small), or Dalniy (Farthest), to the north-west of Blizhniy; and three smaller islands—Stolbovyi (Pillars), Semenovskiy and Vasilevskiy—to the west of Malyi. Dr Bunge found Bolshoy to consist of granite protruding from beneath non-fossiliferous deposits; while the promontory of Svyatoy Nos consists of basalt hills, 1400 ft. high. Along the southern coast of Bolshoy Baron Toll found immense layers of fossil ice, 70 ft. thick, evidently relics from the Ice Age, covered by an upper layer of Post-Tertiary deposits containing numbers of perfectly well-preserved mammoth remains, rhinoceros, Ovibos, and bones of the horse, reindeer, American stag, antelope, saiga and even the tiger. The proof that these animals lived and fed in this latitude (73° 20′ N)., at a time when the islands were not yet separated from the continent, is given by the relics of forest vegetation which are found in the same deposits. A stem of Alnus fruticosa, 90 ft. high, was found with all its roots and even fruits.
Basalts and Tertiary brown coal deposits enter into the composition of the southern extremity of Bennett Island, and the mountains of Sannikov Land, seen by Toll, have the aspect of basaltic “table mountains.”
The climate of these islands is very severe. In 1886 the winter ended only in June, to begin anew in August (21st May, −5.8° F.; 16th October, −34.6°). The highest summer temperature was 50°. Flocks of geese and other birds come to the islands from the north (Bunge and Toll), as also the gull Lestris pomarina, which feeds chiefly on the lemming. The lemmings are very numerous, and in certain years undertake migrations to the mainland and back. Reindeer, followed by wolves, come also every year to the islands; the polar fox and polar bear, both feeding on the lemmings, are numerous. Hunters come in numbers to the Lyakhovs, which must have been long known to Arctic hunters.
A Yakutsk Cossack, named Vaghin, wintered on Bolshoy in 1712, but it was a merchant, Lyakhov, who first described the two greater islands of this group in 1770, and three years later reached on sledges the largest island of the New Siberia group, which he named Kotelnyi. The Lyakhovs were mapped in 1777. J. Sannikov, with a party of hunters, discovered in 1805–1808 Stolbovyi, Thaddeus and New Siberia Islands, and merchant, Byelkov, the Byelkovskyi Islands. He sighted the land to the north of Kotelnyi and the land to the north of New Siberia (now Bennett Island). A Russian officer named Hedenström, accompanied by Sannikov, explored the archipelago and published a map of it in 1811. Lieutenant Anjou visited it in 1821–1823. A scientific expedition under Dr Alexander Bunge (including Baron Eduard Toll) explored it in 1885–1886. Baron Toll revisited it in 1893 with Lieutenant Shileiko, and again in 1900 with F. G. Seeberg. Papers were found on Bennett Island showing that he left it for the south in November 1902, but he never returned home, and two relief parties in 1903 failed to find traces of him.
Authorities.—The works of Hedenström, Ferdinand von Wrangell, and Anjou, Bunge and Toll in Beiträge zur Kenntniss des russischen Reichs, 3te Folge, Bd. iii. (1887). Baron Toll in Memoirs (Zapiski) of the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences, 7th series, vol. xxxvii. (1889), xliii. (1895), and 8th series, vol. ix. (1899), with maps. J. Schmalhausen, “Tertiäre Pflanzen,” in same Memoirs, 7th series, vol. xxxvii. (1890); Geographical Journal, passim. (P. A. K.)
NEW SOUTH WALES, a state of the Australian Commonwealth. The name was given by Captain Cook, in his exploratory voyage in 1770, to the southern portion of the eastern coast of Australia, from some imagined resemblance of its coast-line to that of South Wales. The name was afterwards extended to the eastern half of Australia, but now designates a much more restricted area. New South Wales is bounded by the Pacific
Ocean on the E., by Queensland on the N., by South Australia on the W. and by Victoria on the S. It lies between 28° and 38° S. lat., and 141° and 154° E. long. The coast-line, which is about 700 m. in length, extends from Cape Howe (37° 30′)
at the south-eastern corner of Australia to Point Danger in
28° 7′ S. The colony is approximately rectangular in form,
with an average depth from the coast of 650 m. and an average
width from north to south of 500 m. The superficial area is
estimated at 310,700 sq. m., or about one-tenth of the whole of
Australia.
Physical Configuration.—The surface of the state is divided naturally into three distinct zones, each widely differing in general character and physical aspect, and clearly defined by the Great Dividing Range running from north to south. The tableland, which forms the summit of the range, comprises one of the three zones and separates the other zones, viz. the coastal region, and the great plain district of the interior. The main range follows the line of the coast, varying from 30 to 140 m. distant, being nearest at the south and receding the farthest at the sources of the Goulburn river, the main tributary of the Hunter. The crest of this range is, in some places, narrow; in others it spreads out into a wide tableland. The eastern slopes are, as a rule, rugged and precipitous, but the western versant falls gently to plains. The highest part of the Dividing Range is in the south-eastern portions of the state, on the borders of Victoria. Here some of the peaks rise to a height of over 7000 ft.; one of these, Mount Kosciusco, the highest peak in Australia, attains an elevation of 7328 ft. The tableland varies greatly in elevation, but nowhere does it fall below 1500 ft., and in places it reaches an average of 5000 ft. The great plain district, lying West of the tableland, is part of a vast basin which comprises portions of Queensland, South Australia and Victoria, as well as of New South Wales. The great plains are traversed by a few rivers, whose long and uncertain courses carry their waters to the river Murray, which empties itself into the Southern Ocean through the state of South Australia, and during 1250 m. of its course forms the boundary between the states of New South Wales and Victoria. The Murray has a very tortuous course, as may be judged from the fact that the measurement along the joint boundary of New South Wales and Victoria is only 460 m. in a straight line, the river course being 1250. The chief tributaries of the Murray are the Darling and the Murrumbidgee, which is joined by the Lachlan The Murray and the Murrumbidgee are permanent streams, but the Darling occasionally ceases to run in part of its course, and' for a thousand miles above its junction with the Murray it receives no tributary. In its upper course the Darling receives numerous tributaries. Those on the right bank all come from Queensland and bring down enormous volumes of water in flood time; on the left bank the most important tributaries are the Gwydir, Namoi, Castlereagh, Bogan and Macquarie. Here and there along the course of the western rivers are found lagoons, sometimes of considerable dimensions. These are commonly called lakes, but are in reality shallow depressions receiving water from the overflow of the rivers in times of flood, and in return feeding them when the floods have subsided.
The coastal belt differs greatly from the other divisions of the state. The main range gives rise to numerous rivers flowing eastward to the South Pacific. Almost everywhere between the main range and the sea the country is hilly and serrated, more particularly in the southern portions of the state. In the Illawarra district, 50 m. south of Sydney, the mountains skirt the very edge of the coast, but farther north there is a wider coast-land, with greater stretches of country available for tillage and pasture.
Along the sea-board are twenty-two well-defined headlands or capes and about a score of bays or inlets, to mark which for navigators there are thirty-four lighthouses. There are four very fine natural harbours, viz. Jervis Bay, Port Jackson, Broken Bay and Port Stephens, and several others of minor importance. Port Jackson, on which is situated the city of Sydney, is one of the six greatest ports of the British empire. The port second of commercial importance to Sydney is Newcastle, at the mouth of the Hunter river, which is the great coal-shipping port of the colony. Secondary harbours, available for coasting steamers, south of Sydney are at Port Hacking, Wollongong,
