Various

“ American law is in general the same as the English law with regard to auctions. As to bidding by the vendor, however, it is less stringent. For, though puffing or by-bidding, as it is often called, will, under both systems alike, render an auction sale voidable at the option of a purchaser when it amounts to fraud, the weight of authority in the United States is in favour of the view that an owner may, without notice, employ a person to bid for him, if he does so with no other purpose than to prevent a sacrifice of the property under a given price. ”

“ Austria does not form a geographical unity, and the constituent parts of this empire belong to different geographical regions. Thus, Tirol, Styria and Carinthia belong, like Switzerland, to the system of the Alps, but these provinces together with those lying in the basin of the Danube form, nevertheless, a compact stretch of country. On the other hand Galicia, extending on the eastern side of the Carpathians, belongs to the great plain of Russia; Bohemia stretches far into the body of Germany; while Dalmatia, which is quite separated from the other provinces, belongs to the Balkan Peninsula. ”

“ Of late years whaling has again attracted attention, and a small number of vessels prosecute the industry during the season. The only source of maritime wealth that is now being sufficiently exploited to be regarded as an industry is the gathering of pearl-oysters from the beds off the northern and north-western coasts of the continent. In Queensland waters there are about 300 vessels, and on the Western Australian coast about 450 licensed craft engaged in the industry, the annual value of pearl-shell and pearls raised being nearly half a million sterling. ”

“ Not only in these lucky provinces, New South Wales and Victoria, where the auriferous deposits were revealed, but in every British colony of Australasia, all ordinary industry was left for the one exciting pursuit. The copper mines of South Australia were for the time deserted, while Tasmania and New Zealand lost many inhabitants, who emigrated to the more promising country. The disturbance of social, industrial and commercial affairs, during the first two or three years of the gold era, was very great. ”

“ The tides of the Atlantic Ocean are of great complexity. The tidal wave of the Southern Ocean, which sweeps uninterruptedly round the globe from the east to west, generates a secondary wave between Africa and South America, which travels north at a rate dependent only on the depth of the ocean. With this “free” wave is combined a “forced” wave, generated, by the direct action of the sun and moon, within the Atlantic area itself. Nothing is known about the relative importance of these two waves.
(H. N. D.)
See also Oceans and Oceanography. ”

“ The Briton does not lose his love of sport upon leaving his native soil, and the development of athletics in the United States and the British colonies has kept step with that of the mother-land. Upon the continent of Europe sports have occupied a more or less prominent place in the life of the nations, but their development has been but an echo of that in Great Britain. A great advance, however, has been made since the institution of the modern Olympic games. ”

“ During her placid life Miss Austen never allowed her literary work to interfere with her domestic duties: sewing much and admirably, keeping house, writing many letters and reading aloud. Though, however, her days were quiet and her area circumscribed, she saw enough of middle-class provincial society to find a basis on which her dramatic and humorous faculties might build, and such was her power of searching observation and her sympathetic imagination that there are not in English fiction more faithful representations of the life she knew than we possess in her novels. ”

“ When, on the other hand, the supply of nutritive matter is suspended or diminished, or when the power of assimilation is impaired, atrophy or wasting is the result. Thus the whole body becomes atrophied in many diseases; and in old age every part of the frame, with the single exception of the heart, undergoes atrophic change. Atrophy may, however, affect single organs or parts of the body, irrespective of the general state of nutrition, and this may be brought about in a variety of ways. One of the most frequently observed of such instances is atrophy from disuse, or cessation of function. ”

“ Every court of record has power to fine and imprison for contempt of its authority. Attachment being merely a process to bring the defendant before the court, is not necessary in cases of contempt in the presence of the court itself. Attachment will be granted in England against peers and members of parliament only for such gross contempts as rescues, disobedience to the sovereign’s writs and the like. Attachment will not lie against a corporation. ”

“ The glass manufacture is one of the oldest industries in Austria, and is mainly concentrated in Bohemia. Its products are of the best quality, and rule the markets of the world. In the manufacture of earthenwares Austria plays also a leading part, and the porcelain industry round Carlsbad and in the Eger district in Bohemia has a world-wide reputation. The leather industry is widely extended, and is principally carried on in Lower Austria, Bohemia and Moravia. Vienna and Prague are great centres for the boot and shoe trade, and the gloves manufactured in these towns enjoy a great reputation. ”

“ The skin gives out an objectionable odour, owing to the habit of anointing the body with fish-oils, but the true fetor of the negro is lacking in the Australian. The voices of the blackfellows are musical. Their mental faculties, though inferior to those of the Polynesian race, are not contemptible. They have much acuteness of perception for the relations of individual objects, but little power of generalization. No word exists in their language for such general terms as tree, bird or fish; yet they have invented a name for every species of vegetable and animal they know. ”

“ Off the Queensland coast the shelf broadens, its outer edge being lined by the seaward face of the Great Barrier Reef. From Torres Strait to Dampier Land the shelf spreads out, and connects Australia with New Guinea and the Malay Archipelago. An elongation of the shelf to the south joins Tasmania with the mainland. The vertical relief of the land above the ocean is a very important factor in determining the climate as well as the distribution of the fauna and flora of a continent.
The land mass of Australia rises to a mean height much less than that of any other continent ”

“ In the higher latitudes of the South Atlantic the salinity diminishes steadily and tends to be uniform from east to west, except near the southern extremity of South America, where the surface waters are very fresh. Our knowledge of the salinity of waters below the surface is as yet very defective, large areas being still unrepresented by a single observation. The chief facts already established are the greater saltness of the North Atlantic compared with the South Atlantic at all depths, and the low salinity at all depths in the eastern equatorial region, off the Gulf of Guinea. ”

“ Australia is essentially the fragment of a great plateau land of Archean rocks. It consists in the main of an Archean block or “coign,” which still occupies nearly the whole of the western half of the continent, outcrops in north-eastern Queensland, forms the foundation of southern New South Wales and eastern Victoria, and is exposed in western Victoria, in Tasmania, and in the western flank of the Southern Alps of New Zealand. ”

“ New South Wales was the first country which endeavoured to settle its labour grievances through the ballot-box and to send a great party to parliament as the direct representation of Labour, pledged to obtain through legislation what it was unable to obtain by strikes and physical force. The principle of one-man one-vote had been persistently advocated without arousing any special parliamentary or public enthusiasm until the meeting of the Federal Convention in 1891. ”

“ Famous through the middle ages were also the works, especially for the extraction of gold and silver, carried out in Bohemia and Moravia, whose early mining regulations, for instance those of Iglau, were adopted in other countries. But the great industrial development of the 19th century, with its growing necessity for fuel, has brought about the exploitation of the rich coal-fields of the country, and to-day the coal mines yield the heaviest output of any mineral products. ”

“ An extraordinary variety of sports has been popular in Great Britain with high and low for the past five centuries, no other country comparing with it in this respect. Nor have Ireland and Scotland lagged behind England in athletic prowess. Indeed, so far as history and legend record, Ireland boasts of by far the most ancient organized sports known, the Tailtin Games, or Lugnasad, traditionally established by Lugaid of the Long Arm, one of the gods of Dia and Ana, in honour of his foster-mother Tailti, some three thousand years ago. ”

“ The only idea of a god known to be entertained by them seems to be that of the Euahlayi and Kamilaori tribe, Baiame, a gigantic old man lying asleep for ages, with his head resting on his arm, which is deep in the sand. He is expected one day to awake and eat up the world. Researches go to show that Baiame has his counterpart in other tribes, the myth varying greatly in detail. But the Australians are distinguished by possessing elaborate initiatory ceremonies. Circumcision of one or two kinds was usual in the north and south, but not in Western Australia or on the Murray river. ”

“ All kinds of horses are represented from the heaviest to the lightest, from the largest to the smallest. The most beautiful horses are found in Bukovina, the largest and strongest in Salzburg; those of Styria, Carinthia, Northern Tirol and Upper Austria are also famous. In Dalmatia, the Küstenland and Southern Tirol, horses are less numerous, and mules and asses in a great measure take their place. The finest cattle are to be found in the Alpine region; of the Austrian provinces, Salzburg and Upper Austria contain the largest proportion of cattle. ”

“ Above the level plain of absolutely smooth surface, devoid of houses or vegetation, the equipotential surfaces under normal conditions would be strictly horizontal, and if we could determine the potential at one metre above the ground we should have a definite measure of the potential gradient at the earth’s surface. The presence, however, of apparatus or observers upsets the conditions, while above uneven ground or near a tree or a building the equipotential surfaces cease to be horizontal. In an ordinary climate a building seems to be practically at the earth’s potential ”

“ This expedition put an end to the hope, so long entertained, that it was possible to obtain a direct and practicable route for stock between Kimberley and Coolgardie gold-fields; and it also proved that, with the possible exception of small isolated patches, the desert traversed contained no auriferous country.
It may be said that exploration on a large scale is now at an end; there remain only the spaces, nowhere very extensive, between the tracks of the old explorers yet to be examined, and these are chiefly in the Northern Territory and in Western Australia north of the tropic of Capricorn. ”

“ In tropical waters a sea snake is found, which, though very poisonous, rarely bites. Among the inoffensive species are counted the graceful green “tree snake,” which pursues frogs, birds and lizards to the topmost branches of the forest; also several species of pythons, the commonest of which is known as the carpet snake. These great reptiles may attain a length of 10 ft.; they feed on small animals which they crush to death in their folds.
The Australian seas are inhabited by many fishes of the same genera as exist in the southern parts of Asia and Africa. ”

“ The party is, however, formed on a broader basis than the state parties, the solidarity pledge extends only to votes upon which the fate of a government depends. Naturally, however, as the ideals of the members of the party are the same, the members of the Labour party will be generally found voting together on all important divisions, the chief exception being with regard to free trade or protection. The Labour party held power in the Commonwealth for a short period, and has had the balance of power in its hands ever since the formation of the Commonwealth. ”

“ The whole of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia proper, half of Queensland, and more than half of Western Australia, comprising 1,801,700 sq. m., are without the tropics. In a region so extensive very great varieties of climate are naturally to be expected, but it may be stated as a general law that the climate of Australia is milder than that of corresponding lands in the northern hemisphere. During July, which is the coldest month in southern latitudes, one-half of Australia has a mean temperature ranging from 45° to 61°, and the other half from 62° to 80°. ”

“ As early as 1860 there had been disturbances of a serious character, and the Chinese were chased off the goldfields of New South Wales, serious riots occurring at Lambing Flat, on the Burrangong goldfield. The Chinese difficulty, so far as the mining population was concerned, was solved by the exhaustion of the extensive alluvial deposits; the miners’ prejudice against the race, however, still exists, though they are no longer serious competitors, and the laws of some of the states forbid any Chinese to engage in mining without the express authority in writing of the minister of mines. ”

“ But it is notable that all recent volcanic action was confined to a wide belt parallel to the coast. No evidences of recent lava flows can be found in the interior over the great alluvial plain, the Lower, or the Higher Steppes. Nor has the continent, as a whole, in recent times been subjected to any violent earth tremors; though in 1873, to the north of Lake Amadeus, in central Australia, Ernest Giles records the occurrence of earthquake shocks violent enough to dislodge considerable rock masses.
Australia possesses one mountain which, though not a volcano, is a “burning mountain.” ”

“ On the European-African side the descending movement is more marked, partly because the coast-line is much more irregular and the northward current is deflected against it by the earth’s rotation, and partly because of the outflow of salt water from the Mediterranean; here the movement is traceable to at least 1000 fathoms. The northward movement of water across the Norwegian Sea extends down from the surface to the Iceland-Shetland ridge, where it is sharply cut off; the lower levels of the Norwegian Sea are filled with ice-cold Arctic water, close down to the ridge. ”

“ The absence of active volcanoes in Australia is a state of things, in a geological sense, quite new to the continent. Some of the volcanoes of the western districts of Victoria have been in eruption probably subsequent to the advent of the black-fellow. In some instances the cones are quite intact, and the beds of ash and scoriae are as yet almost unaffected by denuding agencies. Late in the Tertiary period vast sheets of lava poured from many points of the Great Dividing Range of eastern Australia. ”

“ Numerically the flocks of Australia represent one-sixth of the world’s sheep, and in just over half a century (1851-1905) the exports of Australian wool alone reached the value of £650,000,000. During the same period, owing to the efforts of pastoralists to improve their flocks, there was a gradual increase in the weight of wool produced per sheep from 31⁄4 ℔ to an average of over 7 ℔ The cattle and horse-breeding industries are of minor importance as compared with wool-growing, but nevertheless represent a great source of wealth, with vast possibilities of expansion in the over-sea trade. ”