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 Military Academy, on the right bank of the Hudson River, 12 m.  N. of New York; the Academy is on a plateau 188 ft. above the road; it was established in 1802 for training in the science and practice of military engineering, and the cadets are organised into a battalion of four companies officered from among themselves, all under strictest discipline.

WEST VIRGINIA.  See VIRGINIA.

WESTCOTT, BROOK FOSS, biblical scholar, born near Birmingham; studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, and obtained a Fellowship; took orders in 1851, and became Bishop of Durham in 1890; edited along with Dr. Hort an edition of the Greek New Testament, the labour of years, and published a number of works bearing on the New Testament and its structure and teachings; b. 1825.

WESTKAPPEL DYKE, one of the strongest dykes in the Netherlands; protects the W. coast of Walcheren; is 4000 yards long, and surmounted by a railway line.