OCEANIA.

OCEANIA, the fifth grand division of the land surface of the globe, embraces the vast "world of islands" in the Pacific Ocean, and also includes the great island-continent of Australia and the smaller islands between the Pacific and the Indian Oceans.

Oceania thus includes the two great divisions of Australasia and Polynesia, and some geographers include in addition the Malaysian or East Indian Archipelago.

AUSTRALASIA comprises the island or continent of Australia, the islands of Tasmania and New Zealand, together with the Fiji Islands and British New Guinea.

POLYNESIA is the name generally given to the vast multitude of islands scattered through the Pacific Ocean. These islands are so distributed that they may be arranged in three groups, namely :—

1. Melanesia, which includes the large island of New Guinea and several smaller islands-all south of the Equator.

2. Micronesia, which embraces numerous small islands, almost all of them to the north of the Equator.

3. Polynesia Proper, which comprises the rest of the islands in the Pacific to the north and east of the Fiji Islands. The three islands of New Zealand and the Off Islands are, geographically, Polynesian islands, and Fiji and British New Guinea also form part of Melanesia, but these three colonies are so closely attached to those of Australia that they are now generally regarded as forming, with the Australian states, one of the most important of the territorial divisions of the British Empire, and to which the convenient name of Australasia has been given.

MALAYSIA, or the East Indian Archipelago, regarded by some as within the limits of Oceania, is, however, generally considered to belong to Asia,

and these islands have therefore been described under that continent.

AUSTRALASIA.

AUSTRALASIA, that is, Austral or Southern Asia, is the general name given to the larger British Colonies and Possessions in Oceania. Australasia thus includes the great island-continent of Australia, the islands of Tasmania and New Zealand, together with the Fiji Islands and British New Guinea.

Australia, which is, strictly speaking, an island, but an island of such an inmense size that it may well be regarded as a continent, is politically divided into five states, which form, with Tasmania, the Commonwealth of Australia.

The five States of Australia are New South Wales (the Mother-Colony of Australia), Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, and Western Austraat; and their absolute and relative position may be readily grasped by regards g the continent as divided into three parts-Western, Central, and Eastern-by the 129th meridian east, and by another line formed by the 138th merid an a the no. th and the 141st in the south. The Western part consists entirely of Western Australia, the Central section comprises South Australia and 15 Northern Territory, while the Eastern division includes the three states of Queensland in the north, New South Wales in the middle, and Victoria in the south.