Justus Perthes
Thomas Elder's Expedition across Southwest Australia, 1893
10 x 20 in
25.4 x 51 cm
25.4 x 51 cm
AUNZ2939
Sir Thomas Elder's Wissenchaftliche Forschungs-Expedition West und Sud Australien. German edition showing the route of Sir Thomas Elder's Scientific Exploring Expedition in south and west Australia. Elder financed the expedition...
Sir Thomas Elder's Wissenchaftliche Forschungs-Expedition West und Sud Australien.
German edition showing the route of Sir Thomas Elder's Scientific Exploring Expedition in south and west Australia.
Elder financed the expedition which was organised by the Royal Geographical Society and initially led by David Lindsay.
Although the expedition made initially favourable progress in South Australia, particularly due to their judicious use of camels as beasts of burden, upon reaching western Australia, it became increasingly arduous. Several attempts were made to travel further into the interior only to find that sources of surface water, which had previously been recorded as being permanent, had dried up due to a drought.
Internal dissent also wracked the project, leading to a mass resignation of the scientific officers of the expedition. Lindsay was recalled to Adelaide in January 1892, leaving the surveyor, Lawrence Allen Wells in command. In March of 1892, Elder decided to abandon the expedition.
Despite this abandonment, the expedition mapped over 200,000 kilometres of country previously unknown to Europeans.
The Geographische Mitteilungen, in which this map was originally published, is the oldest German language geographical journal - its first issue was in 1855 and it finally closed its doors in 2004. The magazine was conceived and edited by August Heinrich Petermann and published by the venerable firm of Justus Perthes in Gotha, Germany.
Its first article reported on an expedition into North Africa and the Sahara by Heinrich Barth and Adolf Overweg. This report was enough to secure a circulation of 4000 for the fledgling magazine and, more importantly, encouraged other important scientist-explorers of the day who were attracted by the magazine’s heavy scientific emphasis to send in their own reports. These included Hans Meyer, the first man to ascend the Kibo crater on Mount Kilimanjaro, Sven Hedin, the Swedish explorer of Central Asia and the Himalayas, and Alfred Wegener, the geoscientist who pioneered the theory of continental shift which led to the modern theory of plate tectonics.
In comparison to its contemporaries, such as the Geographical Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, the Mitteilungen had a far greater interest in ethnography and the physical and natural sciences, leading to the inclusion of many fascinating, but sometimes obscure, maps on the most recent theories related to climatology, meteorology, botany, and zoology.
Printed colour. [AUNZ2939]
German edition showing the route of Sir Thomas Elder's Scientific Exploring Expedition in south and west Australia.
Elder financed the expedition which was organised by the Royal Geographical Society and initially led by David Lindsay.
Although the expedition made initially favourable progress in South Australia, particularly due to their judicious use of camels as beasts of burden, upon reaching western Australia, it became increasingly arduous. Several attempts were made to travel further into the interior only to find that sources of surface water, which had previously been recorded as being permanent, had dried up due to a drought.
Internal dissent also wracked the project, leading to a mass resignation of the scientific officers of the expedition. Lindsay was recalled to Adelaide in January 1892, leaving the surveyor, Lawrence Allen Wells in command. In March of 1892, Elder decided to abandon the expedition.
Despite this abandonment, the expedition mapped over 200,000 kilometres of country previously unknown to Europeans.
The Geographische Mitteilungen, in which this map was originally published, is the oldest German language geographical journal - its first issue was in 1855 and it finally closed its doors in 2004. The magazine was conceived and edited by August Heinrich Petermann and published by the venerable firm of Justus Perthes in Gotha, Germany.
Its first article reported on an expedition into North Africa and the Sahara by Heinrich Barth and Adolf Overweg. This report was enough to secure a circulation of 4000 for the fledgling magazine and, more importantly, encouraged other important scientist-explorers of the day who were attracted by the magazine’s heavy scientific emphasis to send in their own reports. These included Hans Meyer, the first man to ascend the Kibo crater on Mount Kilimanjaro, Sven Hedin, the Swedish explorer of Central Asia and the Himalayas, and Alfred Wegener, the geoscientist who pioneered the theory of continental shift which led to the modern theory of plate tectonics.
In comparison to its contemporaries, such as the Geographical Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, the Mitteilungen had a far greater interest in ethnography and the physical and natural sciences, leading to the inclusion of many fascinating, but sometimes obscure, maps on the most recent theories related to climatology, meteorology, botany, and zoology.
Printed colour. [AUNZ2939]
