CSIRO PUBLISHING www.publish.csiro.au/journals/hras Historical Records of Australian Science, 2006, 17, 283–300

Reviews

Compiled by Libby Robin

Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies (CRES), Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia. Email: [email protected]

Hugh Tyndale-Biscoe: Life of Marsupials. Marsupials as a scientist who also has to CSIRO Publishing: Melbourne, 2005. deal with public opinion, public policy and 464 pp., full colour illustrations, answer media enquiries. This is a parallel ISBN: 0643091998 (PB), $69.95, universe to the more academic atmosphere 0643062572 (HB), $99.95. of CSIRO, where Tyndale-Biscoe worked. Life of Marsupials is a remarkable book. It However, both reflect the major historical is a brilliant act of individual scholarship shifts in the attitudes to Australia’s marsu- and a crowning achievement of a research pial fauna over the last 50 years –– the career on this fabulous group of animals. period in which the conservation paradigm Hugh Tyndale-Biscoe has been a long- grew from obscurity to a major public term supporter of telling the story of Aus- policy matter in contemporary Australia. tralia’s marsupials and a regular and active Tyndale-Biscoe has not written an argu- participant at the annual meetings of the mentative text in Life of Marsupials, but Australian Mammal Society. It was in that has concentrated on producing an encyclo- non-hierarchical environment in the mid paedic work of excellence. Tyndale-Biscoe 1970s that I first met him. He was one of grew up in an era of the ascendancy of the many generous members of senior encyclopaedists, where a careful filtering CSIRO staff that took a keen interest in of knowledge and new ideas was the those taking their first toe-hold in the disci- cornerstone of good scholarship. He may pline. Such thoughtful mentoring remains be the last of his kind in Australian mamm- vividly with those who have been helped, alogy. At the July 2003 meeting of the and Tyndale-Biscoe’s book reflects the care Australian Mammal Society, I asked him and thoughtfulness in its interpretation of why he was approaching this great task as the works of others. His contribution is a single author, rather than editing a worthy of a text on its own, but such volume with others in related disciplines. historically skilled biographies of Austral- He replied that he was attracted to the idea ian scientists are rare. of one mind sifting through all the material The intent in this review is to look at the to come up with a unified text. book in contexts other than that of a mar- There is a tacit assumption in Life of supial biologist, even though zoology is Marsupials that the reader can identify a how I earn my living, endeavouring to marsupial. The opening etching (p. 1) of an manage our marsupial fauna. I therefore American opossum by Buffon in 1749 is also inhabit the research science world, in captivating, although it does look like a rat which I have known Tyndale-Biscoe for with a pouch. The first figure, Fig. 1.1 30 years, mainly in the constructive (p. 6), is a diagram of the uterus and environment of the annual scientific meet- genital ducts. We rely on the photos on the ings of the Australian Mammal Society. front cover of the book to give the The approach here is to look at Life of non-specialist reader a clue as to what a

© Australian Academy of Science 200610.1071/HR06009 0727-3061/06/020283 284 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 17 Number 2

marsupial looks like until we reach the fierce battle of ideas. However, his occa- useful set of plates in the middle of the sional lapses are most revealing. Under the book. The author’s enthusiasm for the heading of ‘Remaking the thylacine?’, the inner workings of marsupials appears in author deals with the technical obstacles of chapter 1 and remains the dominant theme ‘the idea that a thylacine might be resur- for the book. Tyndale-Biscoe’s condensa- rected from the DNA stored in museum tion of this material is masterful, nearly specimens’. Already, in the word ‘resur- free of the frustrations and blind alleys, rected’, one sees the writer’s answer to the and the often idiosyncratic style of the question posed by the sub-heading. In his original researchers’ papers. The process penultimate sentence to this segment, he of science is more interesting than the final concludes that thylacine resurrection is answers, as the yet-to-be-written history of ‘squandering limited resources that would Australian mammalogy will show. How- be far better used to ensure that other ever, one version of such a history will not species of marsupial, still alive today, do be enough. The personalities of the players not go the way of the thylacine’ are too diverse to be captured by one (pp. 161–2). scholar. The same could be said for the Let us suppose that in another 32 years politics of the way science has been con- this current edition of Life of Marsupials ducted in Australia, within the CSIRO, the will be the benchmark of our knowledge of universities, and state and federal govern- the beginning of this century. Only the ment departments with their responsi- very oldest reader will know what Tyndale- bilities to manage marsupials as pests, Biscoe was talking about. This edition’s threatened species, icons or extinct segment on the thylacine did not carry species. In the 1973 edition, the author left even one academic reference to any the subject to the last chapter, 18 of the specific program to ‘reconstitute’ the total 228 pages. In the 2005 edition, it was thylacine, unlike the rest of the book, also a final chapter, now 17 of 384 pages, which is academically thorough. This i.e. proportionally smaller, although ele- ments of the text elsewhere hold opinions looks like a segment that is pure specula- on problems and solutions. If Tyndale- tion, but in fact the lack of reference is a Biscoe’s book is successful at encouraging coy omission. He must be referring to further scholarship, then in another Michael Archer’s thylacine program, espe- 32 years, a single book will not be able to cially when Archer was Director of the cope with the volume, complexity and Australian Museum. (See, for example, diversity of the subject. Some of the diver- M. Archer, ‘Confronting crises in conser- sity did escape from him in this edition, vation’, in D. Lunney and C. Dickman particularly in the areas of wildlife (eds) A Zoological Revolution, Mosman, management, the ethics of research on RZSNSW, 2002, pp. 12–52.) Archer marsupials, and marsupials as pests himself uses the term ‘resurrect’, and [although the brushtail possum in New added that ‘it is clearly not an alternative to Zealand gains a detailed mention (p. 264), traditional conservation strategies –– if and he does not shrink from endorsing anything, quite the reverse’. In the ultimate culling of overabundant koala populations sentence in the thylacine segment where (pp. 237–8)]. Tyndale-Biscoe notes: ‘But dreams are Life of Marsupials is as unbiased as one more powerful than less spectacular and could hope for in any text. This sets far more achievable goals’, it seems that Tyndale-Biscoe apart from many current both Tyndale-Biscoe and Archer are really researchers and writers who enjoy the saying the same thing. Review Section 285

Such dreams are a catalyst for change, biologists who share much with Tyndale- and Tyndale-Biscoe is equally a dreamer, Biscoe in their fascination with marsupial with this book being a modern dream biology. Both Dickman and Close focus on following a period of widespread marsu- the 1973 edition of the book and both pial extinction. On the last page of Life of acknowledge their deep debt to this timely Marsupials, the author points to the value first edition. Their praise remains undimin- of knowing the biology of marsupials as a ished for this new edition, and both note means for assisting with their conserva- that the great increase in the intervening tion: ‘if we knew better how marsupials 32 years reflects the growth in the subject. survived for so long and why they died out Tyndale-Biscoe’s 1973 edition helped so rapidly, we might know better how to propel that growth. This new edition will live in this country for the long term’ do the same. (p. 384). No scholar has any argument with Daniel Lunney that proposition, but the history of the Department of Environment and Conservation timetable of change to our environment Sydney Editor, Australian Zoologist does not allow for scholarship to be the sole source of conservation policy. If the book had been written by most other biolo- R. W. Home, A. M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, gists, it would more likely have been D. M. Sinkora, J. H. Voigt and Monika entitled Extinction of Marsupials. Tyndale- Wells (eds): Regardfully Yours, Selected Biscoe’s ambition of a scholarship-led Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, recovery of our marsupial fauna took a Volume III: 1876–1896. Peter Lang: Bern, heavy blow with the recent demise of the 2006. 909 pp., illus., ISBN: 3906757102 CSIRO Division that nurtured him for so (HB). many decades. At the annual scientific meetings of the Australian Mammal …the Right honourable the Secretary of Society in the 1970s, 1980s, and some of State will kindly consider, that I have made the study of plants of all Australia an object the 1990s, the contingent from CSIRO of life, that I have sacrificed for it nearly all Division of Wildlife and Ecology was most that is dear to us in the world, and that it is formidable. Tyndale-Biscoe’s solo pres- with some pardonable pride when I own to ence at the July 2006 meeting was a tragic have lived through the greater portion of the symbol of the short life of this great idea. century of main-discovery of natural history and to have helped to unfold largely The history of what has worked to con- the vegetable objects, which nature with serve our marsupial fauna has yet to be prodigal richness has strewed over the written. The subject is rich with opinion, grandest possession of the British crown. dreams and some common sense and, for (pp. 135–6) the intending historians, some substantial This passage, written when Ferdinand von sets of documents. Mueller was fifty-three, sums up many In 2005, this book won the prestigious aspects of his life. Not only does it express Whitley Medal of the Royal Zoological his life-long devotion to Australian botany, Society of New South Wales. The speech but his claim to pre-eminence in it. by Chris Dickman at the presentation of Although he was German –– perhaps in the award is published in the June 2006 part because of it –– he was a fervent edition of Australian Zoologist vol. 33(2). adherent of the British crown and empire. This edition also carries a review of the He was also conscious of a sense of sacri- book by Rob Close; the review having fice of other aspects of life in the intensity been sought prior to the Whitley awards. of his botanical devotion. There is an Both reviewers are senior university-based ambivalence in this sense of sacrifice 286 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 17 Number 2

grounded in large measure in his removal How did these inform Mueller’s think- in 1873 as Director of the Melbourne ing? There are clear indications of his Botanic Garden, which he had developed strategies for gathering and naming speci- for 16 years, while remaining Government mens and for disseminating botanical Botanist of Victoria. knowledge across the Australian colonies. These themes are played out in the third He was interested in the distribution of and concluding volume of Mueller’s species and not merely their classification. Selected Correspondence. This covers the But he does not seem to have had such a last twenty years of his life, from the age of developed sense of ecosystems as his fifty. His bitterness at the loss of the direc- friend the Reverend Julian Tenison Woods torship –– and his contempt for the ‘gar- and he saw evolution as a threat to his firm dener’ William Guilfoyle appointed in his religious belief. After he had distributed stead –– recurs in numerous letters. The copies of a book on nebular theory, he surviving letters are a fraction of what was found on reading it that it contained some written. This volume includes 326 letters ‘irreligious passages’. ‘Should you there- to, or from, Mueller, significantly more fore have received this highly objection- than in either of the previous volumes. able book, please destroy it,’ he told Although deprived of access to the col- E. P. Ramsay (p. 577). lection of living plants, Mueller was kept Mueller’s viewpoint underpinned all his busy with his herbarium, which was the work. He was asked for advice on many focus of much of his correspondence. With matters relating to botany, forestry and his pre-eminent position he felt he should agriculture. In commenting on a plant that be the clearing house for correspondence had fatally poisoned some juvenile pigs, he and provision of specimens to experts in saw a potential benefit from the chemical Europe. Mueller was annoyed when action of the plant –– ‘as providence does Frederick Bailey in Queensland –– ‘in not call forth organisms of any kind reality my disciple’ (p. 276) –– sent speci- without some beneficent purpose, we may mens to be named independently. There also now obtain a clue, how this new was some reason for this. If specimens vegetable principle could become a power- were being sent independently to different ful therapeutic auxiliary perhaps in the scholars, ‘scattering the material of one hand of physicians, to alleviate or even place without concert, would lead to com- subdue human maladies’ (p. 268). plications, double working, increased syn- The volume contains two indexes, onymy & so forth’. But it is also clear that botanical and general, which are for the behind Mueller’s grumbling was an acute most part effective. Concepts and practices sense of his status and its vulnerability. are harder to trace. There are passing com- The immense profusion of Mueller’s ments on evolution and a number of inter- letters was matched by a prodigious esting passages on illustration, both amount of botanical work in the gathering photographic and woodcut –– ‘xylographic and lending of herbarium specimens, the illustrations’ as Mueller portentously calls writing of publications and lectures, and them. But the index does not help us with involvement in local scientific bodies. He these. also read late into the night. ‘You probably An editorial decision was made to head have no idea,’ he informed one correspond- letters by the forename and surname of the ent, ‘that I read five medical, two chemical, writer. This means that familiar forms of four horticultural, two geological, about name like W. B. Clarke and E. P. Ramsay half a dozen geographical and just as many become William Clarke and Edward botanical journals regularly!’ (p. 387). Ramsay. In fact in this volume the former Review Section 287

is given as William Branwhite Clarke. But yes, this is the period in Australia (say the editorial policy seems to have given 1900–1960) when our colleagues in the rise to confusion between William Sharp humanities found Australia a dull and Macleay and his cousin William John wretched place, an intellectual quagmire, Macleay, a letter from the latter being lacking all cultural virtue. Such reaction misattributed to the former in the index. simply demonstrated the inability of those The correct identification is given in the scholars to appreciate the excitements of Biographical Register (Appendix A). scientific discovery, the ferment of new The three printed volumes of selected ideas, that were sweeping over the world. correspondence are a prelude to a com- And most especially in the physical, chem- plete edition of all identified extant corre- ical and biochemical sciences. (Geology spondence to be published electronically. and biology had to await a later period.) This will provide an opportunity to rectify As but one example, and one relevant to any minor errors in the printed edition and Professor Trikojus’s outstanding contribu- have all the benefits of a word-searchable tions here in Australia, I can cite our text. In the meantime the printed volumes understanding of the structure and function provide a convenient survey of many of of proteins in living cells. This body of Mueller’s thoughts and actions, and high- knowledge grew at a staggering pace from light his most important botanical relation- say 1930 to 1960. For those of us involved ships. And the forthcoming biography will in, or just as spectators of that new learn- set this detail in context. ing, it simply didn’t matter where we lived While Mueller could grumble all too or worked –– we were part of an inter- well, it is delightful that almost the last national network, sharing in the excite- letter he wrote –– to the young Thomas ments of scientific progress. Hart at Ballarat, in August 1896 –– over- Professor Victor Trikojus, Professor of flows with encouragement and enthusiasm: Biochemistry in the University of Mel- ‘But now I like to invoke also your early bourne from 1943 to early 1968, was a aid for the promotion of special studies of major participant in this scientific intellec- mine. I am thus eager to get from as many tual ferment. Ross Humphreys has done an places as possible in the far interior during excellent job in describing his life –– his this spring particularly any kinds of the discoveries, his triumphs, his virtues, his minutest plants, in which Australia is humanity –– the full tapestry of a remark- richer than any other wide region of the able life. globe’ (p. 747). With all that Mueller Two great scientific chapters in the achieved in the ‘study of plants’, his pride Trikojus story concern sulphaguanidine was pardonable indeed. and thyroid metabolism. Trikojus was Julian Holland trained essentially as an organic chemist, Sydney and during the 1930s at the University Sydney, he made contributions to many important medical agents –– arsenicals, Ross Humphreys: Trikojus: a Scientist for hypnotics, vitamins, mercurials and essen- Interesting Times. The Miegunyah Press: tial oils. In 1941, Trikojus devised a new Melbourne, 2004. xviii + 154 pp., illus., and very effective method for the synthesis ISBN: 0 522 85095 2 (HB), $45. of sulphaguanidine from the readily availa- Interesting times indeed. This reviewer ble sulphanilamide. This bacteriostatic would say ‘more than just interesting agent was particularly effective for the times’ — fascinating, challenging and treatment of bacillary dysentery and was rewarding, sometimes breathtaking. And badly needed by the Australian forces in 288 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 17 Number 2

New Guinea, where cases were at epi- the 1950s, they switched to commercial demic proportions –– 50–80 soldiers per salt from shops. Quite soon, many children day. Through April 1941 Trikojus and his were born deaf. staff worked round the clock and produced Chapter seven of the book is entitled 81 pounds (37 kg) of the drug. Further ‘Thyroid Metabolism – Life Work’ and in production using the Trikojus process was eleven pages Ross Humphreys gives a then done at Monsanto in Melbourne. Sup- fascinating summary of Trik’s very signifi- plies were sent to New Guinea and had a cant contributions to this important field. dramatic effect in the Owen Stanley and There is also much to interest those con- Buna campaigns, where over 2000 men cerned with the history of the University of had been incapacitated by dysentery. Melbourne and the development of bio- Colonel Sir Alan Newton, Director- chemistry in Australia. General of Medical Services, reported that The book contains an illuminating ‘Development of local production of the preface by Peter Doherty, Nobel Laureate, drug sulphaguanidine played a vital role in which reads as a scholarly book review. saving Australia from Japanese invasion’. I wish to quote two sentences from this From early in his career Trikojus had essay; they well reflect my own opinion: become interested in endocrinology and the ‘In summary, this book is well worth read- iodine metabolism of the thyroid gland, and ing, both as an account of a man who made this became his major research preoccupa- major contributions to medical biochemis- tion for the next forty years. The fascination try, his university, his nation and the world of this field can be well understood. The community, and as a history of a revolu- thyroid gland was thought by 19th century tionary time in science and world events. anatomists to be merely a means of filling –– He was a scientist’s scientist, who con- out and beautifying the neck (especially in tinued to do active research until well after females). In the 20th century this gland was his official retirement and, at the end of his recognized as the source of a hormone career, had the perception to promote the (thyroxine) that regulates the body’s energy growing importance of molecular biology.’ consumption, and also controls the devel- John M. Swan opment of part of the embryo. South Yarra The thyroxine molecule contains chem- ically bound iodine, and many people in regions lacking iodine in their water or D. J. Carr (ed): A Book for Maisie. foodstuffs had an enlarged and defective Celebrating the Life and Work of thyroid, a condition sometimes described S. G. M. Carr née Fawcett, Pioneer as ‘Derbyshire neck’. The children of such Australian Alpine Ecologist, 1912–88. people were often born with defective D. J. Carr: Canberra, 2005. xiii + 356 pp., hearing and in severe cases, mental defi- illus., ISBN: 0-646-45596-6 $30 (PB) ciency. Iodine-deficient regions (such as (limited edition of 300 copies). Derbyshire) are often characterized as Stella Grace Maisie Carr, née Fawcett, had places of high rainfall, or where the land a long association with Australian science. had been submerged by floods or glaciers. From her postgraduate research in Mel- Over long periods, salts in the soil, includ- bourne the 1930s until her death in Can- ing iodide salts, were leached away. It is of berra in 1988, she contributed to various interest that this effect can be sudden. In aspects of Australian botany and its the remote Jimi valley of New Guinea, the history. Ecological studies prompted her natives traditionally used a natural rock interest in landscape history, while her salt rich in iodide in their cooking, but in interest in botanical history grew out of her Review Section 289

taxonomic work. She and her husband, electric scheme, which was then being Professor Denis Carr, the editor of this constructed by Victoria’s State Electricity volume, produced a pioneering publication Commission, whose engineers were con- on the history of Australian botany in time cerned about the effects of soil erosion on for the International Botanical Congress in the scheme. Sydney in 1981 — the pair of books, In 1944 Maisie Fawcett was appointed People and Plants in Australia and Plants the SCB’s first research officer. Visitors to and Man in Australia. the Bogong High Plains and historians of A University of Melbourne science Australian ecology will know of the two graduate, Maisie Fawcett, gained an MSc areas that she had fenced in the mid-1940s degree in 1936 and continued investigating so that various types of vegetation could be fungi and fungal and nematode diseases of monitored in the presence and absence of plants in the University’s botany depart- cattle. For a decade of summers, Turner ment. When a severe facial injury curtailed brought a university team to record the her microscopical work, Maisie’s scientific vegetation in sister plots inside and outside mind moved to ecology and in 1941 she the two exclosures. These exclosures have had a university research scholarship for produced some of Australia’s longest quan- an ecological study of the Dandenong titative vegetation records, continuing long Ranges. The recently appointed professor after Maisie Fawcett’s 1949 return to Mel- of botany and plant physiology, John bourne to teach plant ecology and systemat- Stewart Turner, was keen to encourage ics, and Maisie and Denis Carr’s departure university ecological research, and was for Queen’s University Belfast in 1960. happy to help Victoria’s new Soil Conser- Maisie wrote engaging and eloquent let- vation Board (SCB), which lacked money ters. Much of her Omeo correspondence and staff to undertake investigations. Con- with Turner is in the University of Mel- trary to Carr’s claim, Turner engineered her bourne Archives (UMA). Carr acknowl- ecological opportunity. To facilitate an edges UMA access to some material, but investigation of soil erosion in the widely does not indicate which of the letters he has burnt (1939) catchment of the Hume Res- selected are held in UMA. Maisie’s corre- ervoir, Turner convinced the SCB that a spondence and recollections provide splen- woman could undertake the work and did glimpses of the route by which a young arranged for the redirection of Maisie’s woman from a working-class family in one research scholarship to the Hume catch- of Melbourne’s western (industrial) suburbs ment. He wrote to her in September 1941 came to teach and undertake research ‘you now have 2 years (at least) for almost across a broad botanical spectrum. Her long full-time research….I hope that in pushing November 1949 letter to Turner provides a you into ecology I have done the right wonderful description of her busy first year thing –– but I believe I have’. lecturing in the Botany School. This was how Maisie Fawcett came to A Book for Maisie includes letters to live in the Victorian country town of Omeo and from Maisie interspersed with her in 1941. Her alpine ecological efforts were autobiographical notes, excerpts from an prompted by her observations of soil interview she gave not long before she erosion on the highest part of the Hume died, and contemporary and historical catchment, the Bogong High Plains, which accounts of her life and work. The ten for nearly a century had been grazed and chapters in Part I cover her childhood, her trampled by cattle. Parts of the High Plains University of Melbourne undergraduate were in the catchment of an expensive studies, postgraduate research and teach- engineering project –– the Kiewa hydro- ing, her work from Omeo, and her 290 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 17 Number 2

subsequent work in Belfast and Canberra. Don Garden (Mark Stoll, series ed.): Chapters 3, 4 and 5 cover her ecological Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific: work from Omeo and Melbourne from An Environmental History. ABC-Clio: 1941 to 1960. Chapters 7 and 8 cover her Santa Barbara, 2005. 398 pp., subsequent work on the Bogong High ISBN: 1-57607-868-X (HB), US$85.00. Plains. Chapter 9 covers her work on Euca- This is a fine, scholarly textbook, which lyptus morphology and taxonomy, often in should prove useful for anyone interested collaboration with Carr. Part II includes in the environmental history of this large three unpublished pieces –– her huge eco- segment of the globe. Unlike most text- logical report on the Hume catchment, her books it is written elegantly and with pas- paper on the physiography of north-eastern sion. Even better it is tied together by a Victoria, and her notes on Eucalyptus coherent argument. Garden aligns himself species in series Clavigerae. A Book for with the so called ‘black armband’ group Maisie starts with a clear chronology and of Australian historians who are deter- ends with a list of her publications and a mined to examine the more awkward reasonably comprehensive index. There aspects of Australia’s past and so overturn are numerous interesting photographs Australians’ amnesia concerning their his- (sometimes undated) and footnotes about tory. Like authors such as Henry Reynolds Maisie’s correspondents and colleagues, who have broadened our understanding of including the Australian ecologist Alec Australia’s turbulent and troubled racial Costin and the British ecologist Alex Watt history, Garden issues stern warning con- (who was from Cambridge not Canberra). cerning the environmental future of not It is a pity that errors have crept into the only Australia but many Pacific Islands and preface and elsewhere. New Zealand as well. Chapter headings A Book for Maisie is timely. Across such as ‘The Tragic Ringbarked Forests’, waves of interest in Australian women ‘Broad, Busy Bulldozed Acres’, or ‘And scientists, cattle-grazing in Australia’s alps Mar the Loveliness of Ages’ make his and Australian landscape history, Maisie’s intentions and arguments crystal clear. He pioneering ecological work has slipped thereby adopts an approach not unlike that into the public imagination. Her High of Donald Worster in Dustbowl and Rivers Plains vegetation plots have featured in of Empire, or Jared Diamond in Collapse, conservation discussions, from considera- by warning that unless rapid changes are tion of a Victorian alpine national park in made, aridity will make human life in the 1970s and 1980s to consideration of Australia impossible just as global the recently accomplished complete warming will inundate many Pacific removal of cattle from it. The 2001 Bogong islands and large parts of New Zealand’s High Plains Natural History pamphlet, low-lying coastline. A section on ‘Contem- produced by La Trobe University’s Centre porary Concerns’ such as climate change, for Applied Alpine Ecology, features blended biotas and sustainability rein- ‘Maisie’s Plots’, and the Australian Dic- forces his firm arguments. Although this tionary of Biography will soon include an somewhat apocalyptic approach may alarm entry on her. Professor Carr is to be con- practitioners such as John MacKenzie, gratulated for making Maisie’s corre- William Cronon and Richard White, it spondence and other unpublished material makes this the rarest of creations –– a accessible to historians of science. Linden Gillbank provocative textbook that is relevant to the History and Philosophy of Science lives of students and other readers! This University of Melbourne outcome would also win the plaudits of Review Section 291

White and Cronon as well as Worster, Mein Smith in A History of Australia, New because all three agree that there is no Zealand and the Pacific, does not always point in doing environmental history work as a textbook because the units under unless it challenges complacency and has study are so diverse. In this case, however, some relevance for planners, politicians it is these differences that stand out and and concerned citizens. make for illuminating contrast. Garden Garden’s evocative prose helps to get must be congratulated, therefore, on across the immediacy and relevance of achieving coherence in his coverage of problems such as salinity (toxicity result- such a vast and hugely variegated part of ing form rising salt levels) and sodicity the planet earth. Nobody teaching environ- (disintegration of soil into crusts and mental history in this corner of the world, potentially fine dust so that it blows away nor anyone interested in that environ- in dust storms and cannot sustain agri- mental history and the problems it has culture) of Australia’s soils. So too do the bequeathed us today, should be without numerous excellent photographs, many of this important and passionately argued them taken by the author himself. Useful work of synthesis and original scholarship. boxes, glossaries, timelines, a well-chosen Tom Brooking set of primary documents ranging from Department of History explorers’ accounts through memoirs to University of Otago, Dunedin poetry and a helpful essay on further reading add to the usefulness of the book. Perhaps it could have employed more maps Andrea Gaynor: Harvest of the Suburbs: but it is a well-illustrated and handsome An Environmental History of Growing volume. Food in Australian Cities. University of Garden’s stress upon ‘hybrid’ land- Western Australia Press: Nedlands, 2006. scapes draws readers’ attention to the 264 pp., illus., ISBN: 1 920694 48 (PB), extent to which the landscapes and $39.95. environments of the smallest Pacific Atolls Nothing excites opinion like Australia’s to the giant island continent of Australia suburbs. Ever since detached housing sup- have been remade by human activity. Such planted the two-storey terrace, we have transformations, which are as true of New been arguing incessantly about the merits Zealand as of Australia, are all too often of suburban life. Critics decrying the overlooked in orthodox historical narrow, stifling life of the ’burbs have been accounts. Garden’s excellent volume helps many and varied, from the Bulletin writers make up this deficit. to Robin Boyd. Then in 1970, Hugh Inevitably as an Australian environ- Stretton famously rebutted the standard mental historian Garden pays most atten- critique of suburban enervation, arguing tion to the country he knows best. The New that private residential land was both an Zealand account though is comprehensive ‘environmental good’ and ‘vital educator’. and up to date and he covers the vast More recently, Mark Latham’s ‘insiders’ expanse of the Pacific by employing case and ‘outsiders’ updated this long-standing studies of Rapanui/Easter Island, Hawa’ii, contest, setting inner-city elites against the Fiji, Nauru, Western Samoa, Cook Islands ordinary folk of low-density residential and New Guinea. Some readers may have suburbs. liked more such case studies but this would Andrea Gaynor contributes to this debate have made it a very long book. by taking as her focus the hidden histories This kind of tripartite comparison, as of food production in Australia’s suburbs. In attempted by Donald Denoon and Philippa the process, she portrays a nation of 292 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 17 Number 2

backyard farmers, motivated by economic, inner city might have had the need, they cultural and other impulses. Harvest of the didn’t always have the opportunity. Better- Suburbs carefully assembles disparate placed were the respectable working sources to create a complex picture of classes and middle classes of the suburbs, household food production from the 1880s who with ample backyards and some capi- –– a time when animals almost out- tal, could afford to grow their own. By numbered people in low-density suburbs: 1941 in Melbourne, it was genteel suburbs [I]n Brunswick in 1881, with 2.3 persons like Caulfield, Malvern, Camberwell and per acre, approximately 40% of households Kew that were big backyard producers. owned large livestock, and 63% of house- The working-class suburbs of Port Mel- holds owned poultry; in Melbourne city, bourne, Collingwood, Fitzroy and Rich- with 13 persons per acre, 8% of households owned livestock and 21% poultry. (p. 19) mond trailed in their wake. Yet if not driven by economic need, why did the middle As well as providing food and transport, classes bother to grow their own? this suburban menagerie was an important The answer lies, according to Harvest, source of fertilizer for the house-bound in their self-conscious pursuit of independ- horticulturalist. Animal manure was ence as a moral virtue. In this, the back- keenly sought by backyard farmers and yard farmer shared some of the character commercial growers alike in the late nine- of the yeoman, the independent land- teenth and early twentieth centuries. owning agriculturalist who lived by the Human waste was also used, though the self-help maxims of Samuel Smiles. The official advice that it should be composted yeoman vision sustained settlement and or buried seems rather obvious, yet com- extension of Australia’s arable lands, and pelling nonetheless! Adequate supplies of Gaynor contends that it suggested an ideal water were often an issue for suburban type to the small landholder in the nation’s food producers, as was pest control. By cities too. By growing one’s own food, a 1895, however, chemical compounds such householder mimicked the independent as copper arsenate, or ‘Paris green’, were stance of the small land-owning farmer. available to deal with insects. Other later Furthermore, backyard farming described sprays included lead arsenate, an effective a new sphere for the masculine, symboli- remedy for pests but one that posed signif- cally freeing men from the shackles and icant health risks to humans too. In the end, compromise of city life. Like Wemmick, Gaynor surmises, household growers still these home growers created a private, pro- relied primarily on hard work to bring their tected field from which they might hold the backyard crops to the table. city at bay. Popular wisdom has it that this subur- This search for independence underpins ban bounty was produced to meet the continuing interest in suburban food pro- needs of the working class, particularly in duction today. Gaynor interviewed more times of economic exigency. Gaynor than fifty backyard farmers for her book, points out that in the first decades of the and many of them refer to the deep per- twentieth century, the average household sonal satisfaction they derive from spent 30 to 40 percent of its income on growing their own food. In 1998, Andrea food. Yet at the same time, she argues, Vis told the author that backyard farming was a middle-class inter- est as much as a working-class necessity. Looking down at your meal at night and going ‘yeah, wow, we grew the salad, and Food production required significant the eggs have come from here’, it’s a great access to resources, not the least an ade- feeling. I really like that; it’s an independ- quate area of land. While the poor of the ence that you can’t really explain. (p. 191) Review Section 293

For Vis growing food at home is an with a topic like this, she suggests we think important choice, infused with a subjective more deeply about an aspect of suburban sense of her personal relationship to her life sometimes thought trivial. She has also own ‘place’. Other home producers like managed to tease out continuities, rather her set great store in disengaging from the than focusing on the changing character of market –– quite literally, the supermarket suburbanism. At the same time, the author –– and its resource-rich systems. Many are has contributed to broader discussions of impelled by their sense that contemporary suburbia, sustainability, class and cultural society is ‘out-of-control’ and blighted by politics. In her introduction to Harvest of high levels of consumption, according to the Suburbs, Gaynor announces her inten- Gaynor. In these terms, home growers find tion to take suburbs seriously as sites for themselves in a long lineage of critics who urban environmental history. She has done have condemned the city and its vices, that, and encourages us to do the same. preferring to locate virtue in an idealized Mat Trinca rural economy. They are enlivened by the National Museum of Australia sense of providing for themselves, and of Canberra being intensely local at a time when the city is determined by increasingly com- plex, abstracted networks. George Seddon: The Old Country: Yet Harvest of the Suburbs claims that Australian Landscapes, Plants and People. this independent stance is itself in some Cambridge University Press: Port tension with contemporary ecological Melbourne, 2005. xvii + 270 pp., 80 full imperatives. Despite the sense of eschew- colour photographs, ISBN: 0 521 84310 3 ing materialism, backyard farming is often (HB), $49.95. resource hungry, using quantities of water, As a ‘Brit’, married to a Western Aus- manures and pesticides that have signifi- tralian, two regular public service features cant environmental impacts. Rather than on the city of Perth television news have contributing to a more sustainable future, always intrigued me during my visits. The the practice may in fact carry its own costs. first is the way that the locations of all the The independent household food produc- Police mobile speed traps for the next day ers, therefore, are also implicitly at odds are broadcast the evening before (which with the interdependence encouraged by seems to defeat the whole purpose of the community gardening projects. Many of ‘trap’); the second is the Water Watch these projects were born of an alternative sprinkler roster telling citizens which politics and a growing sensitivity to the suburbs can water their gardens on which complex human ecology of the city. Rather designated days. The second has even than isolated backyard farms, their interest taught me a new word, ‘reticulation’. is in pooling people and resources in co- Where I’ve lived in northern England and operative farming ventures on available Scotland, ‘reticulation’ is unheard of, and land. In this sense, the community garden is a wholly unnecessary practice. I’ve now is more than a place to grow vegetables; it moved south to the East Midlands, where is also something of a polemic that chal- 2005/2006 has seen low winter and spring lenges the atomization of post-industrial rainfall. There have been some declara- societies. tions of drought conditions by water com- Gaynor’s great strength lies in the way panies in South East England. Water she has widened the scope of her study and meters are being installed along with hose- its interests. Avoiding the traps of senti- pipe bans, television gardening pro- mentality and nostalgia always lurking grammes are talking water conservation, 294 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 17 Number 2

and there are telephone numbers you can to grow unaided and untended (unwatered) call to inform on your neighbours if you save for the odd affectionate glance of a catch them washing their car or watering plant enthusiast’s eye. And where people their garden under the cover of darkness. feel they must design and plan, Seddon A recent BBC radio debate challenged the urges Australians to learn design tips from folk of southern England to turn off the tap wild nature around them. when cleaning their teeth. The South East The meat of this book looks at various corner of England, and parts of the Mid- thematic stories, case studies in some lands, are facing a crisis and serious water cases. For example, chapter two looks at shortages. The BBC evening news now the Boab Adansonia gregorii as a recent carries some of the same water messages introduction to horticulture. Seddon argues as the Perth evening news, a message that although the Boab could be grown repeated on the inside cover of George successfully in the city of Perth, this does Seddon’s The Old Country: ‘We are a not mean that it should be. Seddon talks of nation of gardeners, and we take pleasure gardeners’ choice playing a role here, but in tending our backyards. But this pleasure freely admits that the thriving suburban sits uneasily with our knowledge that the nursery trade often shapes public choices places where most of us live are running for the worst. Chapter four tells the still out of water’. Like you Australians, we remarkable story of the discovery of the Brits are a nation of gardeners and allot- Wollemi Pine Wollemia nobilis in the Blue ment tenderers, so this will be a tough Mountains in 1994, and seeks to expand reality to accept over the coming decades. the plant story of Australia into a much Seddon strikes out on his botanical wider (and more suitable) Gondwanan journey in The Old Country with two context. Seddon believes the Wollemi Pine primary aims: to encourage a far richer and story should be all the inspiration that deeper awareness of the beauty and diver- Australians should need to get out and sity of the Australian flora, and to promote explore and understand and respect the a more sensible and appropriate use of unique nature and pace of their island’s water in gardens in urban areas. As such evolutionary story. ‘Scientific knowledge the book charts a history of the Australian of the Australian flora, its history and its flora, and reflects on the changing relation- linkages is still, in part, exploratory’ ships that all humans have had with it over (p. 101), he enthuses. Chapter five is time. The native plant is celebrated over deeply personal, a celebration and explora- the alien invader, but Seddon does warn tion of the glorious Banksia family (Bank- the reader about how the languages of sia spp.) intimately associated with science deeply affect the way that we Western Australia, and if properly mar- understand (‘conceptualize’), and thus keted a potential money spinner for respond to modern conservation impera- Tourism Western Australia. The theme of tives. There is much in this book about this chapter is how Banksias flood the direct human awareness of Australian bio- senses and emotions of all Western Aus- diversity, but not just through hard scien- tralians, from art and decoration, to the tific classification, botanical expeditions adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie. and collections, but also through the As Seddon suggests: ‘Care for the heritage senses, emotions, through art and illustra- of our natural environment needs legisla- tion and through photography and verse. tive protection, but it needs much more; The introduction urges the growth and knowledge, affection, associations, stories, celebration of local and regional plants, so that awareness is part of the fabric of more importantly plants that have evolved our consciousness’ (p. 129). Review Section 295

Chapter six on ‘Mediterraneity’ is indeed the appeal of this book is wide, thought provoking. It argues that Perth encompassing academic, public and gardeners are enamoured of places such as policy-making audiences. There is a cam- Tuscany and Provence, places in another paigning zeal here as well, fired out to the hemisphere, other cultures, but in no way nation from a chair in his own Fremantle iconic of Australia. Seddon lays down a garden (a garden that should surely be challenge to all: ‘It might be time to open to the public from time to time!). redirect our dreams. We are here, and not Seddon’s passion and intellectual curiosity somewhere else. There are design and challenges us all to search for our own planning alternatives’ (p. 166). Chapter botanical ‘sense of place’, from which will seven looks at the deciduous and semi- surely come a much more dynamic and deciduous trees and shrubs of Australia, intense relationship between us and our most of which grow far from urban cherished landscapes (in which plants play centres. In an elegant Epilogue, Seddon such a fundamental role), founded on both glorifies the floral wealth of Australia, and the aesthetic and the practical. The wild- speaks of how slowly but surely public flower displays in spring in Western Aus- awareness of and interest in it is growing. tralia are already a tourist attraction. By urging Australian gardeners to grow Finally, I applaud Seddon for calling for plants that look comfortably at home and the creation of a living ‘Green Museum’ need no supplementary watering, Seddon (p. 118), where knowledge and physical is taking his anti-reticulation stance to its experience of a network of key plant sites ultimate conclusion. And you can hear him across Australia will come to shape the shout his warning for the future: ‘Fear the national identity of Australians: Nature hose!’ (p. 239). and the Nation — Australian landscapes, I stumbled across the odd mistake: on plants and people as one. p. 12 the desperately unspecific and Robert Lambert ghastly term ‘seagulls’ is used. If that School of History wasn’t a bad enough label, the birds illus- University of Nottingham/ trated are not even gulls Larus spp., but Fred Alexander Fellow (2006) actually crested terns Sterna bergii. In the University of Western Australia chapter on weeds, the impact of a fascinat- ing series of statistics about alien plant Thomas Barlow: The Australian Miracle. species in South Africa (on p. 225) is An Innovative Nation Revisited. slightly lessened by the repetition of Picador/Pan Macmillan: Sydney, 2006. Central America next to two different fig- xvi + 262 pp., ISBN 10 0 330 42232 4 ures. It was heartening to see a book of (PB), AU$25.00. such public importance as this receive financial sponsorship from botanic gardens Reading this book in England during both in Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne, along- Wimbledon and the World Cup, this side noted private donors, and most press- reviewer is particularly conditioned to the ingly, from the utility company Melbourne laying of blame –– usually put at the foot Water, which Seddon salutes as being of facile individuals, faulty training or lack ‘acutely aware of our need to make better of government support. But at least in such use of a resource we have taken too much cases, those who complain of a lack of for granted in Australia’ (p. vii). ‘national’ support or culture have some Seddon writes with considerable wit, sort of clear target to attack –– England is charm and wisdom. His style is as ever not about to win at either soccer or tennis engaging, argumentative and accessible; (and the awfulness of test cricket against 296 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 17 Number 2

Australia has yet to come). But what do we son in preference to our author’s episodic do when the object of criticism is a moving flourishing of contrasts. Perhaps the more beast without defined form whose exact interesting and testable claim is that such condition we are unsure of? I have never faulty attitudes have the potential ‘to drive known an engineer or a scientist who com- science and innovation policy in directions plained mightily about government spend- unhelpful to our nation’s future’ (pp. xvi, ing too much on research, who shouted 113), and if true, this would be a matter of loud about the shining surfaces of univer- real concern. This is something that is very sity infrastructure or who boasted of his hard to show convincingly –– for instance, nation’s ‘capacity to harness its collective any (seeming) under-investment in national intelligence’ (p. xi). Yet the common self- research and development may have more interested pessimism of all public scien- to do with resource distributions, with eco- tists in all countries does not deter Thomas nomic structure (the proportion of small Barlow from focussing on this as serious firms in the total) and with size and geo- matter for Australian public discussion. graphical location than with any sort of Barlow is fed up with gross Australian public mythology. Indeed, attitudes or negativity. In a book without specific refer- myths and a surfeit of platitudes may follow ences many targets remain unnamed –– from such conditions rather than determine there is a strange lack of reference or policy directions. Here, laced throughout allusion to the work of Ann Moyal or his briskly written text, Thomas Barlow Barry Jones or Don Lamberton –– but at points to the following key links: an obses- times they also appear unformed. Thus, sion with insufficient spending could lead who precisely is it that simply equates to neglect of such vital policy areas as agriculture with low or non-technology? Is company and capital gains tax or intellec- it true that ‘everyone’ thinks Australia is tual property; an obsession with the need failing at innovation? Who ignores the for greater cooperation and community earlier Australian colonies’ brilliant sur- amongst Australian scientists (‘holding one vival tactics based on partial transfers of another’s test tubes’ p. 38) may create white global techniques and artefacts combined elephants and narrow-minded collusions; with sheer ingenuity and talent? How does attitudes that deride technological borrow- such historical analogy or tale telling relate ing as morally or intellectually inferior will to a world of bureaucracy and complex deprive Australia of both vital knowledge policy formulation in a global setting of and superior core techniques, both of which post-machinofacture technologies, where might otherwise be exploited through the global significance of traditional agri- ingenious adaptations; the existing empha- culture, metal working and heavy transpor- sis on big projects will fail to scale up to a tation have receded in the face of micro- level comparable with major large nations, and bio-technologies and much else will breed mediocrity, and will neglect to besides? How are the attitudes of Austral- capture the potential productive break- ian politicians, intellectuals, scientists and throughs in small biotech companies; artists as reflected in the ten myths about policies encouraging collaboration, cross- Australian science (pp. 4–5) any different cutting and boundary crossing might from those of their counterparts in the UK replace creativity with assemblage and or USA, or France, Italy and India? reduce risk taking; bureaucratic administra- This book is not designed to address tion and centralized funding, the effort to such queries in any technical way, and it control innovation, will remove serendipity may be ungracious to raise such matters as and the breakthroughs that arise from local methods of proper international compari- confusions and inefficiencies. Review Section 297

In reaction Barlow makes a good case Mawson’s 1912–13 sledging journey and for an alternative policy trajectory that the death of his two companions, the loss relies on the ‘fluid ecology of the econ- of Shackleton’s Endurance when it was omy’, breaks the old attitudes and crushed by ice in 1915, the return of the acknowledges the value of individuality tiny ship Yelcho to rescue The Boss’s men and unpredictability, and allows scientists from Elephant Island (a moment whose to manage themselves, allows time, and pictorial depiction is re-composed by takes scientists seriously, not as pawns in a Hurley, we learn). McGregor provides suc- passing game. cinct accounts of these expeditions, but Ian Inkster retains a firm focus on Hurley. Nottingham Trent University After his second Antarctic expedition, Nottingham, UK Hurley went south again as soon as he could, travelling by whaling supply ship from Scotland to South Georgia to film the Alasdair McGregor: Frank Hurley: a wildlife scenes he felt were lacking from Photographer’s Life. Viking (Penguin Australia): Camberwell, 2004. 460 pp., his film of the expedition. By the time he maps, colour and B/W illus., glossary, returned to England in mid–1917 and bibliography, index, ISBN 0670888958 joined the AIF as Australia’s official photo- (HB), $65. grapher, others from the Endurance had already been wounded or killed in France. I am a part of all that I have met; Hurley’s photographs show an empathy Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’ Gleams that untravelled world, whose with the plight of the common soldier, but margin fades his role in early photographic recordings of For ever and for ever when I move. the Australian experience of war was frus- From the elegantly apt introductory trating. He was not allowed free licence epigram — taken from Tennyson’s with his camera, or in the darkroom, unlike ‘Ulysses’ — I knew I was in good hands. his Canadian counterparts (p. 158ff). The author’s own background includes The internal tension between perfec- photography, painting, architecture, and tionist artist and practical money-maker travelling to polar places. McGregor is goals was matched by one between com- ideally equipped to write about Hurley, and mercial imperative and historical accuracy he does so with an assurance sustained by which, in his working life, also brought three full years of work on his subject. him into conflict with Canadian–British According to McGregor, James Francis press magnate Lord Beaverbrook. Hurley’s (‘Frank’) Hurley was ‘the first Australian practice of marrying different images to photographer and film-maker to forge a produce particular effects — which had its truly international reputation’ (p. 414). His counterbalancing in his determination to invincibly good photographs were often wait hours or days for the right moment — taken — whether in Antarctica or at war — has sparked some debate today on the where, as he himself remarked, ‘no condi- creation of composite images in photo- tions could have been more unsuited for graphy. I was curious to see whether photography’ (p. 57). About 100 are repro- McGregor discussed it. (He did not.) duced in the book. Hurley in his photography was a chronicler Some of the most gripping events in of dispassionate clarity, but he was no Hurley’s life and work revolve around two historian. He altered the dates of his travels Antarctic expeditions whose stories are in Papua for the sake of ‘continuity’ in his already familiar to many — Douglas hastily written Pearls and savages (p. 426). 298 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 17 Number 2

McGregor begins the book by pushing diaries, correspondence, government files, into Hurley’s icy darkroom in a hut in interviews, paintings and photographs in Antarctica. The hut is at Cape Denison, order to draw as full a picture as possible. Commonwealth Bay, built in ‘a raging Highly recommended. river of wind’ (p. 54) by the men of Bernadette Hince Mawson’s 1911–14 Australasian Antarctic National Library of Australia Expedition, an expedition on which science was a significant goal (unlike Shackleton’s). This scene is a powerful Jack Copeland (ed.): The Rutherford introduction and — given McGregor’s own Journal: The New Zealand Journal for the Antarctic sensibilities and visual training History and Philosophy of Science and — my one regret is that he does not show Technology (online). School of Philosophy, his own face more often, but retains a University of Canterbury, New Zealand. scrupulous distance in his careful docu- ISSN 1177-1380, free. mentation of Hurley’s story. Some years ago there was a flood of new Hurley emerges from the biography as a journals, as publishers sought to boost talented, tireless and ambitious man, their bottom line. More recently the flood remote from his family, an ‘occasional has dried up as libraries have cut their father’ (p. 347) who spent long periods (up journal subscriptions; the sad reality of to six years) away from his wife and truncated journal runs is now all too children, most notably in Antarctica, common. However, there are new and Europe, Torres Strait and Papua, and the alternative possibilities: online journals at Middle East. a cheaper rate, or even free, as in the McGregor draws at length on Hurley’s present case. diaries as well as his photography, the The Rutherford Journal (http://www. former a source to be used carefully, as the rutherfordjournal.org/index.html) was author points out. The diaries describe his launched with its first issue in December two months with Australian Light Horse 2005. It says little about its intentions and Brigades in Palestine during World War I, scope, other than it ‘publishes invited arti- after his time on the Western Front, but cles from leading international scholars’; Hurley later tore out the entries for the but the editor, Jack Copeland, Professor of eight weeks in which he met and married Philosophy at the University of Canter- Antoinette Thierault-Leighton in Cairo. bury, has provided the following informa- Similarly, his diary observations on mis- tion regarding its intended characteristics. sionary stations in Papua in the 1920s were The journal is designed ‘to disseminate ‘only for private information’ (p. 234). His research in the history and philosophy of photographs of villages in Papua form an science and technology’; is only available important anthropological record of cul- online and is free; is financed by the editor tures now radically changed, whatever the donating his time and by his department diaries reveal of what now appear as racial paying for an editorial assistant; will be insensitivities. published annually, containing invited arti- As McGregor points out — and cles only, on topics of interest to the read- Hurley’s diaries confirm — he wrote with ership; plans a wide range of topics (‘Any eventual publication in mind. Aware of the topic in the history and philosophy of implications of this, McGregor extensively science and technology is fair game. The uses other standard biographical tools. The first issue gives an idea…history of code- careful endnotes show a vast assemblage breaking, history of computing, philo- of books, published and unpublished sophy and history of chemistry, history of Review Section 299

Artificial Intelligence and cognitive causality, respectively. Articles by Derek science’); and is seeking ‘a 50–50 balance Browne on paradigm cases of instinct (‘the between history and philosophy in the long result of natural selection acting on behav- run’. iour’), and by Eileen Magnello on ‘Karl The first issue is a very good beginning, Pearson and the origins of modern statis- albeit with a bias in the broad area of the tics’, together with a critical notice of a history of computing, a major interest of recent book, complete the offerings. the editor. The articles are of two types: The online format allows copious illus- shorter and designed to introduce the non- trations: helpful, and an attractive encour- expert to a particular topic (up to 2500 agement to read on. While the number of words), and longer and more specialist endnotes is limited, each article carries a (about 8000 words). Ernest Rutherford useful bibliography. It would be helpful to received his early tertiary education at add the affiliation and contact details of the Canterbury; hence the title of the journal authors. Overall a very creditable begin- and its first article, ‘Rutherford at Canter- ning; and it is a pleasure to see a new bury University College’, based on John journal in this broad field, especially one Campbell’s useful book (Rutherford: Scien- from south of the equator. tist Supreme, 1999). Amongst the shorter John Jenkin items are articles on an early (1880s) Philosophy Program Hollerith tabulating machine in wood; a La Trobe University 2004–2005 exhibition (see review Histori- cal Records of Australian Science, 16(1) 2005, p. 125) at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum on the life and work of William Exhibition Review Jevons, 1850s Sydney photographer and later important economist and early logic Rocks to riches, a special exhibition within machine builder; a new interpretation of the Nation gallery at the National Museum the Turing Test; the solution of a complex of Australia opened on 16 June 2006, to mathematical equation using an early coincide with the sixtieth birthday of Geo- Manchester computer; and previously science Australia, formerly the Bureau of unpublished notes of a discussion between Mineral Resources (BMR). Although it is Turing and others on the mind and the just a small exhibition it represents the computing machine, during a Manchester reuniting of part of the present Geoscience University philosophy seminar in 1949. collections of attractive minerals, and The longer articles cover a wider range. some of the past BMR collections of Two concern computing: Martin Campbell- instruments and other historical objects Kelly’s introduction to human–computer that are in the National Historical Collec- interaction studies, and a lengthy article by tion (NHC) curated by the National Frode Weierud on the breaking of German Museum of Australia. cipher machines by the British at Bletchley The exhibition was opened by the Park during the Second World War. Alan Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Chalmers and Rom Harré are well known Industry, Tourism and Resources, the Hon. in the field of the journal and contribute Bob Baldwin. It must have been a rare thought-provoking articles on Dalton’s opportunity for him to see all aspects of atomic theory and its relationship to the that portfolio captured so elegantly in a emerging experimental evidence from small space. ‘Industry’ was captured by the chemistry, and on what explanation as prac- high tech samples of oil donated by Geo- tised in chemistry can add to the debate on science; varying from pale yellow and 300 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 17 Number 2

blue, through to plum and burgundy, among general exhibitions, more visitors depending on the oilfield of origin, the will be encouraged to find their way out to colourful samples demonstrated the variety the larger, more specialized minerals exhi- possible within the booming oil fields of bition at their Symonston headquarters on north-west and northern Australia. But the other side of Canberra. such industry also has a history, including The exhibition allowed the National a fine 1928 Oertling gradiometer from the Museum to explore the history of science NHC, a device that measures variations in in the national imagination and also the Earth’s gravitational field to reveal oil- place of the minerals industries in present bearing structures, which had been used society. The latter was neatly presented for prospecting in East Gippsland. Some of through a small exhibition of the seed Australia’s most beautiful ‘Resources’ –– mixes that were used to re-green the crystalline minerals –– are featured, many ‘golden mile’ in Kalgoorlie –– a 2006 on loan from private collections. They project. The newly planted vegetation is included bright blue azurite from the col- ‘light’ (the traditional native grasses of lection of Clem Latz and, the centrepiece saltbush/bluebush country), ‘heavy’ of the minerals display, a fabulous pale (acacia/casuarina woodlands), and ‘fluffy’ turquoise Coober Pedy opal still embedded (a seed mix yielding zypogphyllum, stipe in a huge rock (from the Geoscience Aus- and helipterum). Kalgoorlie’s Golden Mile tralia collection). The ‘Tourism’ of course will be very different in another sixty was represented by the presence of the years. exhibition itself in the popular National Libby Robin Museum. Geoscience Australia hopes that Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies by stimulating an interest in minerals Australian National University

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