Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia, in Search of a Route from Sydney to the Gulf of Carpentaria (1848)Mitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone)
History
Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia, in Search of a Route from Sydney to the Gulf of Carpentaria (1848)
Mitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone)
New South Wales -- Discovery and exploration; Queensland -- Discovery and exploration
The Journey narrated in this work was undertaken for the extension of
arrangements depending on physical geography. It completes a series of
internal surveys, radiating from Sydney towards the west, the south, and
the north, which have occupied the author's chief attention during the
last twenty years; and, as on former occasions, it has enabled him to
bring under the notice of men of science some of the earth's productions
hitherto unknown. He cannot sufficiently express his sense of obligation
in this respect, to Mr. Bentham, Sir William Hooker, Dr. Lindley, and
Professor De Vriese, for supplying the botanical matter and notes
contained in this volume, and thus contributing to the general stock of
human knowledge. It is also his pleasing duty to state, that during the
long journey of upwards of a year, Captain P. P. King, R. N., kept a
register of the state of the barometer at the sea side; and, in the midst
of his important avocations, determined, by a very elaborate comparison
of minute details, all the heights of localities herein mentioned.
The new geographical matter is presented to the public with confidence in
its accuracy, derived as it is from careful and frequent observations of
latitude; trigonometrical surveying with the theodolite, whereever
heights were available; and, by actual measurement of the line of route.
This route was connected, at its commencement and termination, with the
trigonometrical survey of the colony; and, in closing on Mount Riddell, a
survey extending two degrees within the tropics, the near coincidence of
his intersections with that summit, as fixed by his survey of 1830, could
not but be very satisfactory to the author.
The geological specimens collected during this journey have been
deposited in the British Museum, and their original locality is shown on
the maps by the numbers marked upon the specimens, so that they may be
available to geologists; hence, in the progress of geological science,
the fossils now brought from these remote regions will be accessible at
any future time, and something known of the geology as well as of the
geography of the interior. As Professor Forbes most readily undertook to
describe the freshwater shells after the work had passed through the
press, that portion of the collection also has thus been brought under
the notice of geologists.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL MAP
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