The chart that put Australia on the map  · Jun 9, 09:51 PM

At 11.30am today in the Parkes Room of Parliament House, the Governor of NSW, Professor Marie Bashir, will present a chart to the president of the Legislative Council, Dr Meredith Burgmann. The chart is singularly plain: a simple, if meticulous, pen and ink rendition of the continent we call home.

Yet behind today’s ceremony lies a fascinating tale of two men, separated by two centuries. The first is Matthew Flinders, the explorer and map-maker who died in 1814, aged just 40. The second is Bill Fairbanks, 66, a company secretary from Wahroonga. What the two share is obsession. Flinders – born in Lincolnshire on March 16, 1774 – was obsessed with becoming the first man to circumnavigate the continent (a mission he achieved on June 9, 1803 when his ship, Investigator, limped back into Sydney harbour).

As for Fairbanks, he is obsessed with reminding us that 2004 is the 200th anniversary of an emotional moment in our history, the first time the name “Australia” was ever used on a map…

Continue reading: Sydney Morning Herald – June 9, 2004

Comment [1]

 

Names by which Australia or the area in general was known  · Jun 7, 10:31 AM

The immense prehistoric supercontinents of which Australia was part well over 200 million years ago:

The following are the names given by European geographers and mapmakers to the huge continent that they believed capped almost the entire southern hemisphere, and subsequently, to the landfalls actually sighted:

—Miriam Estensen

Comment

 

next page »