Cassell's Picturesque Australasia. Edited by E. E. Morris, M.A. 4
vols. (Cassell and Co.)—This work, which has been appearing as a weekly serial for now a considerable time, is at length com- pleted. It is not produced in the sumptuous style in which the publishers have brought out others of their " Picturesque Series." Indeed, the price is much lower; but it has been very carefully put together. About forty contributors have assisted the editor in his work. Indeed, the vast extent of the field which the title " Australasia" indicates, would necessarily demand a great deal of help. The whole of Australia, so far as it has been explored, New Zealand, Tasmania, furnish, of course, the chief subjects ; but we are also taken to Fiji, and even further afield. Nor is it only the scenery about which we hear. The history of the Colonies is given, and their present as well as their past is treated. The intending emigrant, also, may find much that will interest him when he comes to such a chapter as " Free Selection and Free Selectors." But to describe or even to indicate the contents of these four volumes, with their chapters numbering considerably more than a hundred, and their illustrations more numerous than we can count, is a task beyond our powers. We may say that they fulfil the purpose described in the note which the editor (Pro- fessor of English at Melbourne University) has appended to the last of the four, that they are intended to " present to the reader a full and popular account of the Australasian Colonies, and to be a work of interest to all readers and of use to some."
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