The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888

This narrative compiles the recorded maritime and overland discoveries that opened the continent, tracing early European coastal visits and charting voyages through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries before following nineteenth-century inland expeditions. It recounts attempts to locate major waterways and an inland sea, surveys of rivers and mountain passes, encounters and tenuous relations with Indigenous peoples, and the endurance and hardship of parties pushing into unknown country. Interleaved are discussions of geology, drainage systems, vegetation, and animal life, plus the practical contributions of private travellers and public expeditions to mapping and settling previously unexplored regions.