AUSTRALIANA FAUNA & FLORA ABORIGINAL

“Australia’s contribution to the great scientific advances of the 19th century was unique. From the beginning, this ‘bright and savage land’ presented to naturalists sights that excited their curiosity and challenged their understanding – all things ‘were queer and opposite’. ‘When a botanist enters New Holland’,wrote one observer in 1793, ‘he finds himself in a new world. He can scarcely meet with any fixed points from whence to draw his analogies.’ The young Charles Darwin, calling at Australian ports aboard HMS Beagle in 1836, reflected ‘Surely two Creators must have been at work.”

Includes early naturalists’ portraits of Aborigines; initial contact.

First Edition. Bookplate on fep.

• 192 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 29 cm. #301223
• Bibliography: p. 180-189.
• Scientists — Australia — Biography
• Naturalists — Australia — Biography
• Natural history — Australia
• Australia