Physical Geography and Climate of New South Wales

Abstract

A SECOND edition of an excellent pamphlet on the “Physical Geography and Climate of New South Wales,” by Mr. H. C. Russell, F.R.S., astronomer royal for New South Wales, has just been issued at Sydney. It is published by authority of the New South Wales Government. The following extracts may be of interest to various classes of readers in Great Britain:— Looking back through the pages of history, and the dimtraditions of an earlier time, we find abundant evidence of a belief in the existence of a great south land to the south and east of what was then the well known earth. Those early navigators whose travels had fostered this belief, had doubtless followed down the Malay Peninsula and the string of islands which seem to form part of it, in search of spices and other treasures which the islands supplied. Pliny, who had evidently gathered up the traditions of “Terra Australis incognita,” says that it lay a long way south of the Equator, and in proof of this mentions the fact, strange in those days, that when some of its inhabitants were brought to civilization they were astonished to find the sun rise on their left hand instead of on their right. And Ptolemy, AD. 170, after describing the Malay Peninsula, says: Beyond it, to the south-east, there was a great bay In which was found the most distant point of the earth; it is called “Cattigara,” and is in latitude 8½ south; “thence (he goes on to say) the land turns to the west, and extends an immense ditance until (as he believed) it joins Africa.” Arid it may fairly be assumed that the extreme south latitude of Cattigara, and its situation in a great bay where the land turns to the west until it joins Atrica, is proof that it was some point in the Gulf of Car- pentaria, for no other place would fulfil the conditions. The idea that the land actually reached Africa was not Ptolemy's; it was a necessary part of the system of Hipparchus, for he taught that the earth surrounded the water and prevented it from flowing away It it is not surprising, therefore, that the early navigators, following down the islands, came at length to that part of the Gulf of Carpentaria where the land turned to the west; and believing Hipparchus'system of geography, thought that in turning to the west they were in reality turning towards home, and Cattigara was therefore the most distant point known. Marco Polo tells us that the Chinese navigators in his day (A. D. 1293) asserted there were thousands of islands in the sea to south of them, and in the present day we find proofs of their early visits to Australia in the traces of Chinese features amongst the natives of the northern coast; indeed, some historians think that Marco Polo, in the account he gives of the expedition sent to Persia by the Great Khan, refers directly to Australia, under the name of Lochac. This place he says was too far away to be snbjugated by the Great Khan, and was seldom visited; but it yielded gold in surprising quantity, and amongst other wonders contained within it an immense lake or inland sea. It is impossible that such a description should apply, as has been thought, to the Malay Peninsula,—a country within easy reach, and one which his ships must have passed in every voyage; and so far from being beyond his power, it was within the limits over which his sway extended. That Lochac formed part of the main-land was also quite in accordance with their ideas of the earth, which surrounded the ocean, and the abundance of gold is certainly more likely to be true of Australia than of the Malay Peninsula.