Page:Handbook of Western Australia.djvu/38

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
26
Western Australia.

vernment of this Colony. By the supplementary commission granted to the Governor in 1873, the boundaries of the Colony were defined "as extending from the parallel of thirteen degrees thirty minutes South latitude to West Gape Howe, in the parallel of thirty-five degrees eight minutes South latitude, and from the Hartog's Island on the Western Coast, in longitude one hundred and twelve degrees fifty-two minutes, to one hundred and twenty-nine degrees of East longitude, reckoning from the meridian of Greenwich, including all the Islands adjacent in the Indian and Southern Oceans within the latitudes and longitudes aforesaid.

The positions of the extreme points of the Colony are: —

S. Lat. E. Long.
On the North, Cape Londonderry … 13·45 126·57
On the West, Dirk Hartog Island. Cape Inscription … 25·29 112·57
On the South, Peak Head, S. of King George's Sound … 25·13 117·57

The extent and area of the Colony, as estimated in the Office of the Surveyor General, are:—

Length from North to South … 1490 English miles
Breadth from East to West … 865 do.
Length of line including the coast … 3500 do.
And in English square miles … 1,060,000
" acres 678,400,000

It is therefore the largest of the Colonies of Australia, and more than 80 times as large as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

The Swan River, as the centre of the population and industry of the Colony, and as having on its banks the capital, Perth, and at its mouth the principal port, Fremantle, may claim precedence in description. Its name was, moreover, that at first given to the new