Mermaid Tree: How a Tiny Unknown Ship Opened Australia’s North and West to Development, Dreams and Disappointment by Robert Tiley

Book Description

Secondhand. Good to very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Some faint marks on right foredge.

For generations of Australians, the great navigators of the golden age of Antipodean maritime exploration - Cook, Bligh, la Perouse, Bougainville and Flinders have long been household names. The significance of their discoveries and contribution to our island continent's settlement and development is widely appreciated and can hardly be overestimated.

However, much less is generally known about their successors - the hydrographers and explorers of the period 1815-1850.

In this meticulously researched history, Robert Tiley seeks to fill some of the gaps in the national consciousness by the writing of the trials, accomplishments and sheer intrepidity of Frenchmen such as Freycinet, d'Urville and Duperrey; of Britons such as Phillip Parker King, Stokes, Blackwood, Owen Stanley and Wickham, and their valuable work in mapping the eastern, northern and western coastlines of the enormous Australian land mass. (back cover)