The Explorers of Australia and their Life-workFavenc, Ernest
History
The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work
Favenc, Ernest
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Explorers
McMillan examined the country he had found, and having judged it to be
very desirable pastoral land, he returned home. He then formed a new
station for Mr. Macalister on some country he had found on the Tambo
River, and went himself on another trip of discovery. This time he had
four companions with him, two friends named Cameron and Matthews, a
stockman, and a black boy. they followed the Tambo River down its course
through fine grazing country, both plains and forest, until in due course
it led them to the point of its embouchure in the lakes of the south
coast. He named Lake Victoria, and then directed his course to the west,
where he discovered and named the Nicholson and Mitchell rivers. He was
so deeply impressed with the resemblance of the country he had just been
over to some parts of Scotland, that he called the district by the now
obsolete name of Caledonia Australis. On January the 23rd, 1840, he was
out again and discovered and named the Macalister River, and pushed on as
far west as the La Trobe River. This addition of rich pastoral regions to
the already settled districts was altogether due to Angas McMillan's
energy, and is now known as Gippsland, being named officially after Sir
George Gipps, the Governor who had the amusing eccentricity of insisting
that all the towns laid out during his term of office should have no
public squares included within their boundaries, being convinced that
public squares encouraged the spread of democracy.
8.2. COUNT STRZELECKI.
Count Strzelecki's expedition through Gippsland with the discovery of
which district he is commonly and wrongly credited, was due to the
literary and geographical work he had undertaken, as he was gathering
material for his well-known work, The Physical Description of New South
Wales, Victoria, and Van Diemen's Land. He ascended the south-east
portion of the main dividing range, and named the highest peak thereof
Kosciusko, after a fancied resemblance in its outline to that Polish
patriot's tomb at Cracow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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