QUEEN’S COUNTY (6), one of the inland counties of Leinster, in Ireland, N. of King’s County, mostly flat; agriculture and dairy-farming are carried on, with a little woollen and cotton-weaving; population mostly Roman Catholics.

QUEEN’S METAL, an alloy of nine parts tin and one each of antimony, lead, and bismuth, is intermediate in hardness between pewter and britannia metal.

QUEENSLAND, a British colony occupying the NE. of Australia, 1300 m. from N. to S. and 800 m. from E. to W., two-thirds of it within the tropics, and occupying an area three times as large as that of France.  Mountains stretch away N. parallel to the coast, and much of the centre is tableland; one-half of it is covered with forests, and it is fairly well watered, the rivers being numerous, and the chief the Fitzroy and the Burdekin.  The population is only half a million, and the chief towns are Brisbane, the capital, Gympie, Maryborough, Rockhampton, and Townsville.  The pastoral industry is very large, and there is considerable mining for gold.  The mineral resources are great, and a coal-field still to be worked exists in it as large as the whole of Scotland.  Maize and sugar are the principal products of the soil, and wool, gold, and sugar are the principal exports; the colony is capable of immense developments.  Until 1859 the territory was administered by New South Wales, but in that year it became an independent colony, with a government of its own under a Governor appointed by the Crown; the Parliament consists of two Houses, a Legislative Council of 41 members, nominated by the Governor, and the Legislative Assembly of 72 members, elected for three years by manhood suffrage.

QUEENSTOWN, a seaport, formerly called the Cove of Cork, on the S. shore of Great Island, and 14 m.  SE. of Cork; a port of call for the Atlantic line of steamers, specially important for the receipt and landing of the mails.

QUELPART (10), an island 52 m.  S. of the Corea, 40 m. long by 17 broad, surrounded with small islets in situation to the Corea as Sicily to Italy.

QUERCITRON, a yellow dye obtained from the bark of a North American oak.

QUERETARO (36), a high-lying Mexican town in a province of the same name, 150 m.  NW. of Mexico; has large cotton-spinning mills; here the Emperor Maximilian was shot by order of court-martial in 1867.

QUERN, a handmill of stone for grinding corn, of primitive contrivance, and still used in remote parts of Ireland and Scotland.

QUESNAY, FRANCOIS, a great French economist, born at Merez (Seine-et-Oise), bred to the medical profession, and eminent as a medical practitioner, was consulting physician to Louis XV., but distinguished for his articles in the “Encyclopedie” on political economy, and as the founder of the PHYSIOCRATIC SCHOOL (q. v.), the school which attaches special importance in State economy to agriculture (1694-1774).