he Sahara, consisting
of low lands with high lands behind, and through the valleys of which
rivers flow down, and including Senegambia, Upper Guinea, and Lower
Guinea, the coast of which is occupied by trading stations belonging to
the French, the English, the Germans, the Belgians, and the Portuguese,
and who are severally forcing their way into the inland territory
connected with their several stations.

WEST AUSTRALIA (161), the largest of the Australian colonies, though
least populous, formerly called the Swan River Settlement, 1500 m. long
and 1000 m. broad, and embracing an area nearly equal to one-third of the
whole Australian continent; great part of it, particularly in the centre,
is desert, and the best soil is in the W. and NE.; emigration to it
proceeded slowly at first, but for the last 20 years it has been steadily
increasing, especially since the discovery of gold, and it is now opening
up; in 1890 it received a constitution and became self-governing like the
other possessions of Great Britain in Australia; Perth, on the Swan
River, is the capital, and the chief exports are wool and gold.

WEST BROMWICH (59), a manufacturing town of the "Black Country," in
Staffordshire, 5 m. NW. of Birmingham; has important industries connected
with the manufacture of iron ware; is of modern growth, and has developed
rapidly.

WEST INDIES (3,000), an archipelago of islands extending in a curve
between North and South America from Florida on the one side to the delta
of the Orinoco on the other, in sight of each other almost all the way,
and constituting the summits of a sunken range of mountains which run in
a line parallel to the ranges of North America; they are divided into the
Great Antilles (including Cuba, Hayti, Jamaica, and Porto Rico), the
Lesser Antilles (including the Leeward and the Windward Isles), and the
Bahamas; lie all, except the last, within the Torrid Zone, and embrace
unitedly an area larger than that of Great Britain; they yield all manner
of tropical produce, and export sugar, coffee, tobacco, cotton, spices,
&c.; except Cuba, HAYTI (q. v.), and Porto Rico, they belong to
the Powers of Europe--Great Britain, France, Holland, and Denmark, and
till lately Spain. The name Indies was applied to them because when
Columbus first discovered them he believed he was close upon India, as he
calculated he would find he was by sailing west.

WEST POINT, an old fortress, the seat of the United States