Ignorance is human fate. And yet, at all times, humans searching for knowledge have reached out beyond the expanding horizon shielding the unknown. In the middle of the eighteenth century, Australia, her coast, her flora and fauna, and her native populations loomed at the horizon.
From 1770 onwards, for fifty years, the 'Great South Land' attracted the attention of some of the most able and curious explorers of England and France. James Cook, George Vancouver, Bruny d'Entrecasteaux, George Bass, Matthew Flinders, Nicolas Baudin. Louis de Freycinet, Phillip P. King and others circles Australia by surveys which were the create the basic network for future settlement and detailed hydrography.
This book follows, with the aid of eyewitness reports, the process of the destruction of the myths surrounding the Great South Land and the establishment of Earth's fifth continent: Australia. The reader will travel in the direction, taken by Cook and Flinders, anti-clockwise around this great island, along its south, east, north, north-west and west coasts and round its major satellite islands, Tasmania and Kangaroo Island.
Contents:
Dedication
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1. The Challenge of the Unknown Southland
Chapter 2. The South Coast: 1627-1803
- Cape Leeuwin to Wilson's Promontory
Chapter 3. Along the East Coast: 1770-1821
- Wilson's Promontory to Cape York
Chapter 4. Along the North Coast: 1605-1819
- Cape York to Cape Van Diemen
Chapter 5. Along the North-West Coast: 1644-1822
- Cape Van Diemen to North-West Cape
Chapter 6. Along the West Coast: 1616-1822
- North-West Cape to Cape Leeuwin
Chapter 7. Around Tasmania: 1642-1819
Chapter 8. Around Kangaroo Island: 1802-1803
Source Bibliography
General Index
