Review Section

CSIRO PUBLISHING www.publish.csiro.au/journals/hras Historical Records of Australian Science, 2004, 15, 121–138

Review Section

Compiled by Libby Robin

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

Tom Frame and Don Faulkner: Stromlo: loss of what he described as a ‘national an Australian observatory. Allen & Unwin: icon’. Sydney, 2003. xix + 363 pp., illus., ISBN 1 Institutional histories are often suffused 86508 659 2 (PB), $35. with a sense of inevitability. Looking back from the security of a firmly grounded present, the road seems straight and well marked. The journey that is reconstructed is one where the end point is always known, where uncertainties and diversions are forgotten — a journey that lands neatly on the institution’s front doorstep. Institu- tional histories are often burdened, too, by the expectation that they will not merely tell a story, but provide a record of achieve- ment. Written for the institution’s staff, as well as broader public, they can become bogged down in the details of personnel and projects. In this case, the fires of January 2003 add an unexpected final act Few institutional histories could boast such to what is a fairly traditional story of a dramatic conclusion as Stromlo: an Aus- growth and success. The force of nature tralian observatory. The manuscript was intervenes to remind us of the limits of substantially complete when a savage fire- inevitability, to fashion from the end point storm swept through the pine plantations another beginning. flanking Mount Stromlo, destroying all the The book is roughly divided into halves. major telescopes and many of the observa- The first six chapters recount the Mount tory’s buildings. Among the losses was the Stromlo Observatory’s origins and early Oddie Dome, built in 1911 to test the site history, concluding with its incorporation — one of the first buildings in the nation’s into the Australian National University. yet-to-be-inaugurated capital. This sudden The latter five chapters each describe the twist of fate forced the authors to add an institution’s development under successive epilogue, providing both a poignant directors, from Bart Bok to Jeremy Mould. account of the fires, and an expression of As the preface explains, this division also hope for the institution’s future. Inspecting reflects the contributions of the two the scene shortly after the devastation, authors. Historian Tom Frame was largely Prime Minister John Howard promised responsible for the first half, while Don government assistance in rebuilding the Faulkner, the observatory’s former Associ- site. Like many others, he lamented the ate Director for Education and Outreach,

© Australian Academy of Science 200410.1071/HR03015 0727-3061/04/010121 122 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 15 Number 1

took on the second after Frame’s appoint- The way in which the passions of the ment as Anglican Bishop to the Australian directors shaped the observatory’s research Defence Force. I have to confess to a priorities are interestingly observed, how- certain weary familiarity when I learned of ever, the impact of staff is not so easy to the structure and division of responsibili- determine. Bok, for example, insisted that ties. Too often, it seems, the recent past is all staff and students undertake observa- deemed to be the province of retired scien- tional projects, forbidding purely theoreti- tists rather than professional historians. cal studies. This is described as ‘especially I was won over by the book’s engaging hard’ on some researchers, but you are left style, and enjoyed the second half more wondering about the tensions that ensued than the first. Although the latter chapters (p. 151). The directors tend to loom so mainly comprise a summary of the obser- large within the narrative that it is difficult vatory’s changing research effort, they gain to form much of an impression of the much from the author’s enthusiasm. The community as a whole. sense of excitement builds, particularly as One characteristic that a number of the the observatory pursues fundamental ques- directors did seem to share was a peculiar tions relating to the nature and history of sense of humour. Woolley, it is suggested, the universe. The MACHO Project, an was ‘addicted to the one-line put-down’, attempt to track down the universe’s ‘miss- demonstrated most painfully at the 1947 ing matter’, is probably the most well ANZAAS congress. When asked where he known of these endeavours, having won thought the exciting new field of radio the coveted front page spot in Nature. At astronomy would be in ten years’ time, he times the narrative does fall back into lists replied, ‘Forgotten!’ (p.108). This was of people and projects, but the feeling is perhaps one of the lowest points in the less one of worthy commemoration than an often frosty relationship between Mount expression of the joy of research. You are Stromlo and the Sydney-based radio left with a sense of the observatory’s intel- astronomers, a relationship that provides lectual evolution, and a desire to get one of the connecting themes in the second outside with a telescope. half of the book. Even though collabora- Equally as fascinating are the personali- tions between the optical and radio astron- ties of the directors themselves. They were, omers became increasingly common, the to put it mildly, a diverse bunch, both in first signs of a lasting thaw did not emerge their research enthusiasms and their per- until Don Matthewson, who had worked sonal habits. As Ben Gascoigne observed both at Stromlo and in the CSIRO Division of Richard Woolley and Bart Bok: ‘they of Radiophysics, was appointed director in were men of widely different character and 1977. temperament who detested each other’ The other major characters in the (p. 131). The differences were perhaps not Stromlo story are the telescopes. Perhaps always so acute, but with contrasts such as more than any other scientific institution, those between the extroverted Bok and the the history of an observatory is bound up shy Olin Eggen, or the refined patrician in the history of its instruments. In Woolley and the self-confessed larrikin Stromlo’s case, the telescopes existed Alex Rodgers, it is difficult not to see this before the observatory, as inaugural direc- line-up as a lesson in the differing styles of tor, Geoffrey Duffield, gathered donated scientific leadership. And I am still trying instruments from around the world even as work out how Eggen, whose working day he was lobbying the Commonwealth was between noon and near-dawn, government for its creation. Successive managed on one meal a day. directors continued arguing for bigger and Review Section 123

better facilities. Woolley secured a 74-inch Related to this is the book’s failure to reflector, Bok obtained an additional site at offer any real explanation of its title — Siding Spring, and Eggen championed what is it that makes Stromlo ‘an Austral- Stromlo’s interests in the development of ian observatory’? Duffield’s campaign suc- the Anglo–Australian Telescope, while ceeded with the establishment of the Matthewson pushed forward with the Commonwealth Solar Observatory, later Advanced Technology Telescope. But even simply known as the Commonwealth as each victory was won, the realisation Observatory. The institution was one of the firmed that neither Mount Stromlo, nor the first to be built in the nation’s capital, and continent as a whole, could provide a site would eventually become part of the Aus- that would enable Australian optical tralian National University. It was one of astronomy to compete with the world’s the Commonwealth’s earliest forays into best. In later years emphasis shifted the realm of scientific research, and yet we towards involvement in large, internation- are offered no suggestions as to how the ally funded facilities overseas. observatory might have contributed to a The early chapters, detailing the estab- sense of national prestige or hopes for lishment of the observatory, don’t seem to national development. Instead of examin- carry the same sense of excitement. Duff- ing the place of science and education in ield’s personality appears somehow more the nation-building agenda, or the imperial elusive, and his energetic efforts on behalf cachet of the solar physics enterprise, we are directed instead towards the scientists’ of solar physics become rather submerged powers of persuasion. in the detail of meetings and resolutions. Despite a number of setbacks and diffi- There is some confusion in the chronology. culties, astronomy in Australia has bene- Even though the shifting political fortunes fited through the public support of a series of the early twentieth century are complex, of large and expensive projects. The Great it doesn’t seem quite fair to make Liberal Melbourne Telescope did not bring the Prime Minister Joseph Cook a minister in success hoped for it, but it was followed in the Fisher Labor government (p. 28). In the twentieth century by the Common- fact it was Cook, not Fisher, who met with wealth Solar Observatory, the Parkes radio a high-powered delegation of astronomers telescope, the Anglo–Australian Telescope, during the British Association for the and the Australia Telescope. The latter Advancement of Science meeting in 1914. notably opened amidst a cloud of green A minor matter of detail, perhaps, but and gold balloons, funded as part of Aus- made more significant by the fact that the tralia’s bicentenary celebrations. There has delegation also included Cook’s former been a nationalistic element to the coun- leader, Alfred Deakin. Moreover, a slip of try’s astronomical ambitions. Perhaps such this kind seems to reflect a feeling that themes are reckoned beyond the scope of politicians and bureaucrats are essentially an institutional history, but we might at dispensable in what is, after all, a story of least have expected a greater attempt to scientific achievement. Rather than being locate Stromlo within its Australian con- active participants, politicians and bureau- text. The early history of Australian astron- crats tend to be slow and uncertain, provid- omy is granted little more than a ing only obstacles for the determined, paragraph, while most of the introduction clear-sighted scientists. This hardly does is turned over to a hand-waving invocation justice to enthusiasm of Deakin or Little- of astronomical greats from Copernicus to ton Groom, nor to the administration’s Einstein. That the history of a major Aus- hopes for the Mount Stromlo site. tralian scientific institution should regard it 124 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 15 Number 1

as more important to affirm its subject’s of Island Magazine, juxtaposes the con- connection to the scientific revolution than temporary glamorization of the species for to its local circumstances, seems to indi- profit with its historical demonization as a cate a lingering sense of illegitimacy. In sheep killer and scapegoat for failures in the aftermath of the 2003 bushfires we are the agricultural industry. Owen often sees left wondering what it is that makes the the humour in this, a quaintly black Mount Stromlo Observatory a ‘national example of which is the Tasmanian coat of icon’. As rebuilding begins, it would seem arms, which depicts two thylacines protec- a question worthy of further consideration. tively embracing a ram. With the Wedge- tailed Eagle, the thylacine was blamed for Tim Sherratt History Program, RSSS sheep losses in the struggling (read mis- Australian National University managed) sheep industry. Reports of slaughter were certainly exaggerated and mostly likely unwarranted for, like the eagle, the thylacine was probably happy to feed on carrion and only occasionally killed stock. There are vestiges of another, related, David Owen: Thylacine: The Tragic Tale of ethos still at work on the island: the taming the Tasmanian Tiger. Allen & Unwin: of a savage land at a remote corner of the Crows Nest, 2003. 228 pp., illus., Empire. In the 1800s the requirement to ISBN 1 86508 758 0 (HB), $29.95. fight off the wild beasts was taken out on the thylacine, a relatively benign and already uncommon animal eking out an existence in the remains of its former expansive range, from Tasmania, across Australia to New Guinea. The recent wilful and illegal release of another sometime sheep predator, the fox, to the island is a throwback to that time and attitude. I must admit that the unsubstantiated comment ‘it is arguable that generations of scientists have peddled and recycled mis- leading thylacine information’ (p. 38) stuck in my craw. And, as a biologist, the flaws in Owen’s examination of the scien- tific wisdom probably coloured my impres- sions of the book. For example, that the thylacine’s tail could be ‘held vertically Thylacine: The Tragic Tale of the Tasma- when sexually aroused’ (p 48) sounds too nian Tiger is an easily read account of the phallic to be true and hardly seems possible environmental, social and economic in an animal with tail ‘stiffly united to the factors involved in the extinction of this spine’ (p. 38). Contrary to the photo near mythical animal. For this first-time caption on p. 43, Tasmanian Devils are not reader on the subject it served as a pleasant thought to be the thylacine’s closest relative introduction. and the males do not have pouches — Author David Owen, well known for his among marsupials the male pseudo-pouch Pufferfish detective series and as the editor is a feature unique to the thylacine. Owen Review Section 125

cites ‘persistence of the European Myth bush to face the gene banks and videocams that wolves ate children’ and biologist Ellis of the twenty-first century. Troughton’s statement that the thylacine’s Penny Olsen stripes ‘which provide a similar protective School of Botany and Zoology camouflage to that of the tiger when Australian National University moving amongst foliage barred by sun- light’ as part of the demonization process (p. 8). He attempts to debunk Troughton’s supposition using reference to work on the function of the zebra’s stripes and in doing so misses the point that in both animals Linda Courtenay Botterill and stripes probably serve to visually confuse: Melanie Fisher (eds): Beyond Drought: prey, in the case of the predator (thylacine) People, Policy and Perspectives. CSIRO and predator, in the case of the prey Publishing: Collingwood, 2003. (zebra). And, though no one would disa- xvi + 229 pp., diagrams, maps, illus. gree that the wolf–thylacine comparison (colour and b/w), was overplayed, wolves do indeed kill ISBN: 0 643 06954 2 (PB), $39.95. people. Suggestions such as that ‘Perhaps it [the thylacine] lacked the ability to scav- enge’ (p. 24) followed on the facing page (and elsewhere) with descriptions of an animal being lured into offal-baited traps do little to sort fact from fiction. Owen rails against the use of names such as Tasmanian tiger, hyena or wolf, which he believes contributed to the creature’s demise. Quite probably they didn’t help but if a ‘bad’ name spells doom, why is the Tasmanian Devil still with us? Owen himself, in attempting to reconstruct the thylacine’s hunting methods, makes comparisons with African hunting dogs. He also appears comfortable to repeat a heavily Europeanized ‘how-the-thylacine- got-its-stripes’ Aboriginal legend in which ‘Drought’ resists any simplifying defini- a ‘hyena’ pup becomes a ‘tiger’ for an act tion beyond something like ‘a variously of bravery. extended interval of moisture deficit’, and Still, the political machinations are of course that begs so many questions. In interesting and most of the elements of the the modern era the drought phenomenon ‘story’ get at least passing mention, from has occupied an increasingly contested the role of dogs and Indigenous people to space between natural events systems and the dream to rebuild the thylacine from the manipulations, or environmental scraps of aged DNA in museum speci- investments, made by human commu- mens. The book will surely find a place in nities. Perhaps it is indeed best seen in its libraries of the many with an insatiable relationship with a complex spectrum of interest in the fate and resurrection of this hydrological demands: incomprehensible, unfortunate creature. It will be a brave seemingly, without reference to the tiger indeed that materializes from the kaleidoscope of needs and wants. 126 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 15 Number 1

In that light, the development of urbani- translates into a commendable civic inten- zation, industrialization and commercial tion — to promote an improved depth of agriculture pits various styles of risk- field — that influences both the structure taking against inadequately understood of the book and the adoption of relatively natural rhythms and properties. That helps straightforward language. to explain why identical physical parame- An opening overview (invitingly entitled ters are often associated with starkly con- ‘Living in the Australian environment’) trasting characterizations of ‘normality’ succeeds in introducing primary ecological and ‘hazard’. So-called ‘drought inci- considerations with which our dominant dence’ is partly, therefore, a product of production systems have been somewhat aspirations and perceptions reflecting the incongruent. This nicely turned piece then water requirements of differing approaches outlines the issues confronting policy- to production — from the most basic making, including a need to encourage forms of pastoralism to advanced, profit- enlightened adaptabilities and the targeting seeking ranching; from nomadic ‘subsist- of a multiplicity of scales. ‘Climate and ence’ hunters and gatherers to peasant drought in Australia’ elaborates on under- farmers; from peasant farmers to agri- lying environmental processes and patterns, business; and so on. It follows that, despite and on the need to accept the cursed term as delusive popularizations, interpretation a complicating ‘human construction’. The cannot safely rely on hydrological data corollary is that it remains susceptible to alone. reason and therefore to the kinds of view- Over the past two centuries Australia points drawn here from academia, the has become notoriously and problemati- CSIRO, key bureaucrats and consultants. cally ‘dry’ as its new occupants sought to So to later chapters discussing the major impose escalating demands upon its modi- state and federal responses to drought (and fied ecosystems. Each ‘drought’ episode to related public concerns, however based); has exhibited and refined a matrix of eco- the role of media representations in venti- nomic, social, political, cultural and even lating and shaping public anxieties; the psychological modes, and the matrix has effects on families and communities; the become part of the problem taken up by economic impacts of drought and of associ- the ‘policy-makers’. Beyond Drought ated government interventions; proposed attempts to address these complexities in enhanced articulations (or better ‘matches’) such a way as to provide useful back- between human use systems and nature’s ground for the educated public and the dynamics, together with flexible policies to makers and deliverers of policy. The assist environmental learning and adapta- hazard attending Australia’s high levels of bility; a description of the variously sup- ‘rainfall variability’ is of course central. portive and unfortunate differentiations Yet a good deal of the entrenched mystique between taken-for granted players (farmer, derives as much from the importation of scientist, policy economist); and a reinser- limited understandings as from apparently tion of Australian approaches into the chronic failures to appreciate the accruing global context. evidence of physical underpinnings. These perspectives seem justified by the These reflections persuade the editors to fact that we find ourselves recurrently in take up an intriguing burden: to ‘place drought crisis mode after more than two drought on the public agenda’ and thereby centuries of non-indigenous settlement — to inform policy-makers, while wishing speaking volumes about an insecure grasp that the very term itself could be ‘removed of environmental constraints and opportu- from the national lexicon’ (p. ix). This nities. The joint aim is to focus ‘inter- Review Section 127

disciplinary’ expertise on the need for Geoffrey Cary, David Lindenmayer, and policy improvements benefiting the Aus- Stephen Dovers (eds): Australia Burning: tralian public as a whole, as well as Fire Ecology, Policy and Management farmers and rural communities. But the Issues. CSIRO Publishing: Collingwood, sensitivity towards the rights and responsi- 2003. 276 pp. illus., ISBN: 0 643 06926 7 bilities of our much broader voter-taxpayer (PB), $39.95. base might have recommended a more thorough consideration of urban and industrial situations. Similarly, although this agreeably focused co-operation does indicate some of the promised ‘inter- disciplinarity’, pointed and eminently accessible historical scholarship could produce a telling supplement. After all, we are in turns blessed and stressed by eco- nomic upturns and depressions, and by wars, diseases, floods, fires, droughts, whatever. If the resultant psychological, structural and other behests have pro- foundly influenced community stances and general preparedness across the board, then surely the visitations of drought are not so easily disentangled as we might be Over the past decade the developed world led to suppose. Provided an inherited dis- has rediscovered fire. It has seemed every- taste for critical scientific and techno- where, as though some ancient scourge, logical constructions is discarded, well- long forgotten and buried, had resurrected directed historical monographs should be itself out of the slime; savaging fringe able to supply the missing element by cities, searing rainforests, incinerating injecting innovative, persuasive accounts nature reserves, corroding climate with its of the experience of a number of judi- effluent; vicious, primitive, unregenerate, ciously selected communities through and unwanted. As the planetary climate good and bad times. has wobbled into drought, massive fires have broken loose from Ethiopia to Alberta J.M. Powell Emeritus Professor of Historical Geography to Provence. In 2003, despite the most Monash University elaborate firefighting apparatus anywhere, wildfires blasted upscale communities in California and, after rambling widely through the Australian Alps, lashed viciously into Canberra. It was, for modern nations proud of their wildland estates, a shock perhaps as profound as the burning of the twin towers. The events sparked a media bonfire. One might expect that the world would have rallied to the study of fire. It hasn’t. The core response has been to bolster fire suppression programs and to condemn the global warming that seemingly supplied the 128 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 15 Number 1

tinder. There are two exceptions: the United ance but that can leach out of an edited States and Australia, each of which has volume. Among that select group I would rekindled a major investment in fire place the papers by David Bowman, Phil research and promulgated broad-shouldered Cheney, Neil Burrows, Christopher Henri, schemes to shield communities from the Rosemary Hill, Lynette Liddle, and flames. To a considerable extent, they are Charles Krebs (disclosure: I know person- carrying the global burden of fire scholar- ally the first three); the pieces by Bowman ship. In the planetary economy of fire, Aus- and Krebs are gems of the genre. tralia is a world leader, known not only for The poorest pieces, and most of the its Outback-sized conflagrations but for its attempts to summarize, suffer from an innovations in fire science. What it has to encumbering, technocratic language that say on the subject of bushfire matters. seems wildly at odds with the subject. But Australia Burning is the record of a that, in truth, may have been the intent: to National Fire Forum held at Australian wrestle the apparently ineffable bushfire National University in February, 2003. into tractable, bureaucratic formulas, in Originally conceived as a modest sympo- part by removing it from the hands of its sium among experts, the convenors aimed more passionate practitioners. ‘to broaden the discussion beyond the If so, the convenors may have cured the usual areas of dialogue within academic, disease at the cost of killing the patient. I government agencies and emergency serv- found the book a disappointment: the ices community.’ The Canberra fires vigour of Australia’s fire community over- pumped that gathering up to a public event. leaps its pages. The Australian bushfire The session followed a rigid prescription. scene is one of spectacular ferment and There were five major areas for discussion: diversity, little of which actually gets Ecology and environment; Fire behaviour between these covers. Australia is fire’s and fire regime science; People and prop- lucky country because, alone among the erty; Policy, institutional arrangements and industrialized nations, it has kept alive a the legal framework; and Indigenous land tradition of landscape burning. Clearly that and fire management. Each area hosted practice needs to adapt to new circum- two speakers who addressed what he or she stances, as it has often in the past; but this ‘believed to be key research and develop- issue barely breaks into print, not even in its ment implications.’ A three-member panel politically volatile incarnation as hazard then commented on the speakers, followed reduction burning. Australia, too, offers a by a compiled summary. The final chapter Third Way of fire management, apart from expanded this formula into a suite of syn- the European obsession with the garden and theses by the editors. the American fascination with wilderness, Inevitably, some contributions are better what might be called an aboriginal model. than others. And while the formula works Of course Aborigines figure prominently in to capture consensus opinions, distilling the forum, but as partners in the fire admin- wide-ranging observations into a kind of istration of nature reserves. No larger vision executive summary suitable for policy of what this might mean outside those elect committees, it sieves out the quirky, the areas—a new strategy of fire management punchy, and the politically incorrect. Yet that the world needs—emerges from the the best papers (I thought) were precisely scrub of technocratic text. those that argued original, forceful, uncon- They are honoured, the Aborigines; and ventional opinions, or managed to inject a their traditional knowledge applauded, sense of personality, the kind of presence even to the point of allowing them to hoard one imbibes by watching the live perform- what they know. Yet the very prominence Review Section 129

accorded them—the 400 Pitjantjatjara, for Andrea Gaynor, Mathew Trinca and example, allowed to face down the global Anna Haebich (eds): Country: Visions of establishment of modern science—high- Land and People in Western Australia. lights a vast gap in the forum’s scope and Perth, Western Australian Museum, ambitions. Andrew Campbell hints at that December 2002. 274 +ix pp., illus., lacuna when he explains that his family has ISBN: 0 7307 5812 5, $24.95. farmed in Victoria since the 1860s, that his father never left the farm during bushfire season for fear of wildfire, and that ‘ploughing firebreaks and burning off against them was an annual ritual and I grew up with a palpable sense of fire risk and preparedness.’ Nowhere in Australia Burning, however, is rural Australia allowed a voice. Nowhere is there a place for the ‘indigenous’ knowledge of rural Australians who have control-burned their fields and paddocks for a couple of hundred years, adopted bushfire-preven- tion measures often learned at painful cost, and continue to staff the volunteer bushfire brigades that are the legitimate pride of Australia’s fire community. The agenda, that is, belongs with a In 1827, Captain James Stirling described metropolitan, even cosmopolitan, elite. the coastal plain of south-western Australia Nature reserves matter, farms don’t. as a ‘paradise’ blessed with fertile soil and Aborigines count because they can be a temperate climate. Two years later, the fitted into a global project of multicultural- first European settlers were cursing the ism; white countryfolk can’t. The bitter sandy soils and heat. Imagining the Aus- fights over fire practices, however, occur tralian land from a distance as Arcadian exactly along the fissures of identity poli- (echoing the myths of the old-world) has tics that divide city from country. Australia always been easier than facing it day to Burning is the assembled voice of the day, sweat dripping into soil, constantly metropole, and that is its value. But measuring the distance between vision and reading its carefully crafted prose while, at reality. the same time, scanning the daily summa- The last decade has seen the publication ries of the coronial hearings underway at of an increasing number of environmental Canberra regarding the 2003 bushfires histories. In Australian literary and aca- would lead one to question whether the demic circles, ‘the land’ has become the two gatherings were talking about the same theme of the moment, the lodestar of histo- country. rians, journalists and novelists, so much so that the term ‘environmental history’ no Stephen J. Pyne School of Life Sciences longer seems adequate to describe the his- Arizona State University tories that have emerged in the last few years. I could grasp for another label, invent a new phrase (and I have tried), but none seems capable of capturing the diversity of 130 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 15 Number 1

this new writing. Informed by historical succeeded admirably. The introduction research, often filtered through personal alone contains a valuable survey of envi- experience with place, sometimes economic ronmental history both nationally and in or political in focus, sometimes cultural, Western Australia. often grounded in science or art history, Gaynor and Trinca were inspired to sometimes all of these and more. There is publish the volume through their contact no aspect of human experience—lived or with the Western Australia Land and People mythical—and no environment, natural or exhibition at the Western Australian built, tangible or imagined, that can escape Museum. One of the finest essays in the rubric of ‘environmental history’. Country is Trinca’s reflection on the many In their introduction to Country: Visions difficulties associated with representing of Landscape and People in Western Aus- environmental pasts in a museum context. tralia, Mathew Trinca and Andrea Gaynor Echoing Marshall McLuhan’s dictum that describe the histories of place and environ- ‘the medium is the message’, Trinca ment that follow as ‘belonging to a new demonstrates how ‘the translation of histori- global story telling’. While this phrase cal knowledges and ideas into exhibitions tends to depoliticize such histories, and is and public galleries’ constitutes new histo- so broad as to mean almost anything, it is ries and new understandings of the past. still preferable to the notion of environ- Drawing on the work of Tom Griffiths, mental history that purports to study the Trinca is alive to the way in which ‘the deep ‘human impacts’ on the environment. The time’ perspective—so central to the practice word ‘impact’ implies that environments of environmental histories—can tend to are first posited as non-human and that the dwarf the cultural and political concerns of task of the environmental historian is to the moment and render historical change of measure and assess the various effects of any kind ‘inevitable’. He also writes of the the human footprint. Understanding ‘reticent objects’ held in museum collec- human interaction with environments (and tions. Many of these artefacts, especially recognizing the indivisibility of these two those collected in the nineteenth century, concepts—the human and the environ- have a symbolic power that tends to repre- ment) reveals a far richer and more unpre- sent ‘settler stoicism’ and resist critical per- dictable history. This collection of essays spectives. The challenge for museum staff, shows why. writes Trinca, is to encourage a plural The editors of this volume have brought reading of the past. together a wide range of environmental Other essays in Country focus on the histories of Western Australia. Contribu- development of Perth’s transport system tors have not had to pass the ‘sand-groper’ (Phil McManus), the city’s poor air quality test before having their work accepted. (Sue Graham Taylor), environmental Many live and work in other parts of campaigns in the 1980s to save bushland in Australia. They are also drawn from a Perth’s southern suburbs (Liana range of fields in the humanities and social Christensen), visions of Old Growth sciences. Trinca and Gaynor rightly point forests in Western Australia (Jean Hillier), out that histories of Western Australian the management of Garden Island (Marion places have tended to be absent in national Hercock) and a revealing examination of histories. Their aim is not only to redress Whaling and the Albany community in the this familiar national imbalance, but to mid-twentieth century (Adam Wolfe). ‘reconnect stories of Australian experience There is also an impressive survey of to those of other cultures and places Vegetation and Environmental History in around the world’. By and large, they have Southern Western Australia by four Review Section 131

geographers from UWA, John Dodson, John Dargavel, Denise Gaughwin and Freea Itzstein-Davey, Lynne Milne and Brenda Libbis (eds): Australia’s Annabel Morris. They explain the genesis Ever-changing Forests V. Proceedings of of the south-west’s remarkable flora, an the Fifth National Conference on area of extraordinary biodiversity and Australian Forest History. Centre for many endemic species. In addition there is Resource and Environmental Studies: Andrea Gaynor’s study of land degradation Australian National University, Canberra, in the eastern wheatbelt (from woodland to 2002. 442 pp., illus., wheat farms), one driven by the settlers’ ISBN 086740 530 9 (PB), $30. deep psychological need to establish a class of yeoman farmers. Patricia Crawford’s detailed study of the Group Settlement Scheme at Northcliffe dovetails nicely with Gaynor’s chapter, which traces the journey of the Settlement Scheme from rural idealism to the bitter disappointment of the 1930s. Two chapters deal specifically with Indigenous relationships to land, Steve Kinnane’s evocative reflection on his per- sonal connection to the East Kimberley and anthropologist Sarah Yu’s discussion of Karajarri people’s complex cultural relationships to water in the West Kimber- ley. Kinnane insists that Indigenous ideals of ‘natural and cultural resource develop- Australian forest history has provided a ment’ must be built upon the cultural and fertile field for the interaction of science spiritual relationships Indigenous people and history in the exploration and elabora- have to these same resources. The alter- tion of Australian environmental history — native, he writes, is no change in the ‘colo- thanks in no small part to the energy and nial conditions’ currently experienced by expertise of John Dargavel, whose Indigenous people in the Kimberley. Fashioning Australia’s Forests (OUP, 1995) This collection of essays makes a was reviewed in HRAS in 1996. John Dar- valuable contribution to our knowledge of gavel co-organized the inaugural national environmental histories in Western Aus- conference of the newly-established Aus- tralia. But perhaps more importantly, it tralian Forest History Society (AFHS) in engages critically with issues that bear Canberra in 1988 and subsequent AFHS relevance across the field of ‘global story conferences at Creswick, Victoria (1992), telling’ (for want of another term!). It also Jervis Bay, NSW (1996), Gympie, Queens- makes this easterner long to visit Western land (1999) and Hobart, Tasmania (2002). Australia. Published proceedings of these confer- Mark McKenna ences and a conference on Australia’s History Department Callitris forests (2000) provide an interest- Australian National University ing record of Australian forest history research. This volume presents 28 papers delivered at the fifth national conference on Australian forest history in Hobart in 132 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 15 Number 1

February 2002, when Dargavel was still forests, and of twentieth century studies. conference co-convenor and co-editor of The two dozen papers with a scientific focus the proceedings, as well as AFHS presi- cover ‘age biogeography, botany, climate, dent, newsletter editor, secretary (except dendrochronology, evolution, historical for minutes) and de facto treasurer. ecology, litter, palynology, phytoliths, soil, The second paper concerns an older stumps, [and] wood anatomy’ (p. 44). forest history group — a section of the The papers presented in this volume oldest international scientific union, the indicate the wide range of Australian forest International Union of Forest Research history research across place, time and Organizations (IUFRO), whose foundation technique. Because the fifth national con- in 1892 was prompted by ‘the need to ference was held in Hobart, there is a unify the character of forest experimental substantial Tasmanian focus, with a third systems and to make the methods of meas- of the papers addressing Tasmanian for- urement and results comparable so that ests, from early nineteenth century extrac- they could be developed and consolidated’ tion of sawlogs and wattlebark to twentieth (p. 16). The author is Elisabeth Johann, century reservation of national parks. In Coordinator of the IUFRO’s Forest History addition there is John Dargavel’s play, Research Unit whose origin dates back to ‘Hard work to starve’, set in Geeveston, 1961. With an initially predominantly south of Hobart, in the early 1920s. The scientific membership, the history section post-conference study tour to Geeveston developed guidelines for scientific papers included tall stands of Eucalyptus regnans dealing with the history of forest stands (where they are called Swamp Gum rather and districts, and now, with a much diver- than Mountain Ash), areas of cool temper- sified membership, it organizes meetings ate rainforest and even a few remnant and publishes conference proceedings and riparian Huon Pines. With two related News of Forest History. John Dargavel pioneering saw-milling Geeves families, organized the first meeting of the Unit’s Geeveston has a Forest and Heritage Tropical Forest History Working Group in Centre and a long association with the association with the first AFHS conference timber industry. in 1988. Other papers address a diversity of With its very diverse membership, the aspects of Australian and overseas forest AFHS aims ‘to advance historical under- history, including historical glimpses of standing of human interactions with Aus- European woodlands, USA fire manage- tralian forest and woodland environments’. ment, New Zealand forests, logging in At a time of burgeoning interest in Papua and New Guinea, and even Chinese environmental history, the AFHS con- poems. tinues to act as a catalyst for the historical The question that guided my reading of investigation of Australia’s tree-clad land- the papers in this volume was ‘Have scien- scapes. It welcomes a diversity of voices tists or scientific ideas shaped past knowl- and perspectives, and has pressed for the edge or management of Australian preservation of historical records, but forests?’. I wondered particularly about the remains neutral on contemporary forest influence of botanists on our understand- policy conflicts. ing and use of Australian forests and Dr Dargavel surveyed the contents of the woodlands. In ‘Joseph Dalton Hooker and six AFHS conference proceedings, and in Tasmanian flora’, Sybil Jack discusses ‘Sources and silences in Australian forest Joseph Hooker’s visit to Tasmania in the history’ shows the preponderance of south- early 1840s and his later published ideas eastern forests, of state forests, of eucalypt about the flora of Tasmania. Passages Review Section 133

quoted reveal some of his ideas about the ment of forest management systems and distribution and taxonomy of plants in rules for topographical surveys, manage- Tasmania and continental Australia. These ment plans and fire protection, that were related to plant geography not (as Jack not always suitable for Australian forests. suggests on p. 80) plant ecology, which Legg notes that, from the late 1860s, the had yet to grow out of plant geography. term ‘scientific forestry’ was often used in Philip MacMahon trained under Joseph Victoria, and Petrow that the concept Hooker (who succeeded his father, William underpinned the substantial report on Aus- Hooker at the Royal Botanic Gardens at tralian forestry published in 1916. Kew, England) and directed Brisbane’s Of course there are other sites of inter- Botanic Gardens for sixteen years before section between silvan and science history. his appointment in 1905 as Queensland’s In the field of botany two questions spring Director of Forests. In ‘Early Queensland to mind. What can forest history research forestry: George Board and Philip MacMa- reveal about Australia’s past vegetation? hon’ Peter Holzworth provides glimpses of What silvan practices have facilitated the MacMahon’s view of forests as precious generation of botanical studies and ideas? sources of valuable timber. The composition of vegetation existing Tasmania’s honorary government bota- at any time is determined by past and nist, Leonard Rodway, shared some of present environmental conditions and Philip MacMahon’s ideas. Rodway was a management practices. Consequently his- prominent member of the Tasmanian torical investigations of particular land- branch of the Australian Forest League. In scapes can enhance an understanding of its his discussion of the formation and activi- vegetation — for example Kevin Kiernan’s ties of the League’s Tasmanian branch in ‘Conservation, timber and perceived values ‘Save the Forests: forest reform in Tas- at Mt Field, Tasmania’, Jane Lennon’s mania, 1912–1920’, Stefan Petrow northern NSW study, ‘Long Creek: from describes the influence of Rodway and the logging to World Heritage’, and Daniel Tasmanian Forest League in the establish- Lunney’s and Alison Matthews’ ‘Ecological ment of Tasmania’s Forestry Department in changes to forests in the Eden region of 1920. Rodway claimed that forests should New South Wales’. The inclusion of ‘eco- be protected for their valuable timber, and logical’ in the title of Lunney’s and Mat- argued in the press for the adoption of thews’ interesting contribution is somewhat modern forestry, which he defined as ‘the misleading. They discuss landscape change science and art’ of determining how ‘to without explanatory ecological details. make the best use of our woodlands’ Two other papers provide illuminating (p. 179). Debbie Quarmby and Kevin glimpses of forests lost long ago to Euro- Kiernan also mention Rodway’s involve- pean exploitation. In ‘Life in a lost ment in the reservation of Mt Field Tasmanian rainforest, winter 1827’, Brian National Park, which was proclaimed in Rollins describes the excruciatingly slow 1915, in ‘Old forests and Tasmania’s early process of slashing a road southward from national parks movement’ and ‘Conser- the north-western coast of Tasmania into vation, timber and perceived values at magnificent but foreboding forests. Diary Mt Field, Tasmania’. entries provide some botanical details of Several authors discuss ‘scientific these cool temperate rainforests dominated forestry’. In ‘Kim Kessell: a first class by Myrtle Beech, Nothofagus cunning- sensible bloke’, Jenny Mills explains that hamii. In ‘Historical records of tree density this product of German thought infused the in the “Big Scrub”’, Brett Stubbs and British civil service and led to the develop- Alison Specht cleverly use survey records 134 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 15 Number 1

to provide information about another R. J. W. Selleck: The Shop: The University extensively-removed rainforest, the sub- of Melbourne 1850–1939. Melbourne tropical rainforests in the Richmond River University Press: Carlton, 2003. xx + catchment in northern NSW. They show 855 pp., illus.,ISBN 0 522 85051 0 (HB), how information on early survey plans can $80. be used to calculate tree densities in forests of Ironwood, Bean, Boowong, Cedar and Mahogany, which the surveyors described as ‘dense brush’ or ‘dense scrub’. Several papers discuss the reservation of national parks. Reserves that exclude logging and grazing are scientifically important because they allow investigations of vegetation spared these destructive pres- sures. Such research can yield information about ecological relationships, intra- and inter-specific genetic diversity, plant dis- eases and pests, and phytochemicals. And, as J. C. G. Banks shows in ‘Wollemi pine: tree find of the 20th century’, new species can still be discovered. Unfortunately the lack of an index in Stuart Macintyre & R. J. W. Selleck: Australia’s Ever-changing Forests V pre- A Short History of the University of vents your picking up traces of Leonard Melbourne. Melbourne University Press: Rodway or Stephen (Kim) Kessell in dif- Carlton, 2003. vi + 193 pp., illus., ferent papers without reading the text. ISBN 0 522 85058 8 (HB), $24.95. Authors’ addresses are given, but a few more details about their positions and interests would help contextualize their contributions. The papers are not peer reviewed, and some are in need of fine editorial tuning. But publication puts their work in the public domain so we can enjoy their ‘richdom’ (as Mueller would say). John Dargavel and his co-organizers and co-editors deserve landscapes of thanks for developing the AFHS and its conferences as fine catalysts for Australian environmental history research. The papers in this volume show that, in providing a forum for discussions about Australian forest history, they have also provided glimpses of some aspects of the history of Institutional sesquicentennials provide the Australian science. occasion for reflection and celebration, and Linden Gillbank an opportunity for publishers to market History and Philosophy of Science related works. The celebrations of the University of Melbourne 150th anniversary of the foundation of the Review Section 135

University of Melbourne by the passing of foundation stone of the first building, the its Act in January 1853 and the inaugural University was ‘instituted in honour of meeting of its Council in May, has seen God, for establishing young men in philo- some celebratory volumes commissioned sophy, literature and piety, cultivating the by the University and the two new histories talent of youth, fostering the arts and reviewed here have been issued to mark the extending the bounds of science’ (The event. Both are works of scholarship: The Shop, p. 2). The very design of the first Shop is fully documented and noted, a buildings, implying instruction via public work to be studied and mined as well as lecture (and not private tutorial as in read for enjoyment; A Short History is a Oxbridge), included, under the influence of vivid and lively evocation that I read the first mathematics and science pro- through in a single sitting. fessors, lecture rooms that allowed audi- Each book discusses relationships ences to view demonstrations consistent between the university and the Victorian with an empirical, even if not necessarily state government, between the professorial an experimental, epistemology. The first board and the Council, and the new professors were appointed by a London relationships between the Council and the Committee, acting independently of the staff introduced when a full-time salaried Council: Frederick McCoy, Professor of Vice-Chancellor was created in 1935, and Natural Science, arrived in Melbourne on the Short History also covers the multiple the same day as the Chancellor read the relationships between the Council, the letter telling the university of the names of Vice-Chancellor and staff and boards as the the appointees, all of whom had left University adapted to the entry of the London by the time McCoy arrived. federal government into the funding/ McCoy, who was primarily a museum control equation. Neither book is driven by palaeontologist, quickly obtained the a need to campaign for the University, honorary position of Director of the although the Short History has been use by National Museum of Victoria, and his the University as a presentation volume to teaching was heavily museum centred. guests at the celebrations in May 2003. The William Wilson, Professor of Mathe- books are, of course, written from a strong matics, who had, like McCoy, been a foun- perspective, perhaps best characterized by a dation professor in Ireland, also taught commitment to the values of an ‘academic natural philosophy, although severely vocation depend[ent] on the capacity of hampered by the delay in the arrival of the teachers and researchers to make their own demonstration equipment that he has judgements’ (Short History, p. 173) and ordered before he left London. illustrated by the critical questioning of With the addition of the Medical School ‘regulatory aggrandisement’ (Short History, in 1862, natural science teaching was p. 174) and the allocation of funds with expanded, with chemistry being initially ‘rewards and penalties for meeting the uni- taught in his own laboratory by John versity’s objectives’ (Short History, p. 167). McAdam, Government Analyst, because The University as an institution does not McCoy would not allow him to use the come out of either study smelling of roses, natural science lecture theatre. Chemistry but it does emerge as an institution that has teaching was expanded from the medical adapted and continues to adapt to changing school, initially to cater for engineers, but circumstances. it was not until 1882 that the first chair of Science featured in the University from chemistry was filled, by the lecturer in the its beginning. According to reports of the medical school, J. D. Kirkland. At the same now lost inscription on the cavity in the time, a separate chair in natural philosophy 136 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 15 Number 1

was filled by H. M. Andrew (then a Martin who taught in Melbourne from member of the Council and a lecturer in 1897 until 1903, few research active staff the discipline). The competition for these until the second half of the 20th century. chairs was limited to Australians and New Research activity in this area, especially Zealanders. Selleck agrees that they that in conjunction with the Walter and ‘would not have been selected by an impar- Eliza Hall Institute (which produced tial committee if the positions had been Macfarlane Burnet’s Nobel Prize), does advertised overseas’, going on to point out not feature in The Shop, and is only that ‘the cynicism of the exercise … is sketched very briefly in the Short History. suggested by the date on their applications: Even in The Shop, the detail that can be in each case … the day of the meeting’ given to the developments in science after (The Shop, pp. 198–9), with an ‘ill- the first 50 years or so diminishes, as the informed Council preferring the noisy and University expanded its range, requiring the demanding to the brilliant and retiring’ less attention to be given to each area than (The Shop, p. 298). is the case for the earliest years. It was not until the appointments, again By their nature neither work is a history by international competition, of Orme of science education and research in the Masson (to the Chair of Chemistry in University of Melbourne. But together they 1886) and Baldwin Spencer (Biology provide signposts for such studies, well 1887) that the systematic initiation of documented in the case of The Shop, and students into a research culture began. indicated in the Short History. As well as While both McCoy and Wilson had pub- discussion of science in the University lished works, gaining personal recognition itself, we find tantalizing glimpses of and prestige, research was not for them the science off-campus. For example, Masson defining responsibility of a university as it and the intrigues that accompanied creation was for Masson and Spencer. When of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Thomas Lyle came as professor of Natural Research; the involvement of the ‘outstand- Philosophy (1889), Melbourne had a ‘bril- ing, manipulative and tragic’ Thomas Laby liant triumvirate of young scientists’. They (The Shop, p. 676), Professor of Natural pushed for, and got, strong assistants and Philosophy, in the Commonwealth X-Ray new buildings, soon demonstrating with and Radium Laboratory and the Optical their students the ‘intellectual power and Munitions Panel of World War II; and other enthusiasm’ generated in the science uses of the relevance of science to agricul- buildings of the University (The Shop, ture and industry to wrest funds from parsi- p. 299, 330). Spencer, in his pioneering monious governments. We also have the anthropological partnership with Francis outlines of a study of the advancement of Gillen, the post and telegraph station women in science, especially in biology, master at Alice Springs, ensured that ‘for including the unsuccessful attempt to about two decades the University of Mel- appoint Ethel McClennan as Alfred Ewart’s bourne could claim to be a centre of a successor in the Chair of Botany and Plant major international research endeavour, a Physiology. (John Turner was appointed claim that today’s universities make almost from abroad in 1938). as a matter of routine, and routinely justify The Shop especially, will provide useful with evidence much less convincing than context for these and other developments Spencer and Gillen provided’ (The Shop, in Australian science, including those not p. 382). primarily associated with the University of Medical science had, with the notable Melbourne. The standard of its publi- exception of the physiologist Charles cation, however, leaves much to be desired. Review Section 137

Many typographical errors were missed in Patrick White (Literature, 1973), was proof correction, illustrations do not neither born nor educated in Australia and always show what is indicated (was the said he did not feel particularly Australian, illustration supplied cropped so that the but won his prize ‘for an epic and psycho- point of reference was omitted?), and the logical narrative art which has introduced a spine of the heavy volume (1.6 kg) shows new continent [Australia] into literature’. serious signs of wear after one reading. The Swiss, Rolf Zinkernagel, shared the Physiology or Medicine prize with A. M. Lucas Norfolk, England Doherty in 1996 for research conducted in Canberra, but did not work in Australia either before or after the prize-winning period. The exhibition was not a collection of large, colourful oil portraits of these men (and they are all men), but rather a ‘bio- Exhibition Review graphical exhibition’, in which the lives and personalities of these high-achievers were highlighted. The focus was small, Australia and the Nobel Prize: National intimate and moving black-and-white Portrait Gallery, Canberra. photographs of the laureates, together with 5 December 2003–15 February 2004. personal letters, items of equipment, Only in 1998 did Australia begin a collec- medals and citations, ephemera and mem- tion for a National Portrait Gallery. The orabilia. Visitors who spent time absorbing Old Parliament House in Canberra is now the atmosphere and reading the informa- where we celebrate the achievements of tive captions found themselves inspired our extraordinary citizens, reluctantly, and uplifted. These men were revealed as unless of course they are sportsmen or fully human, and the foundation of their sportswomen! It is refreshing, therefore, to fame was made understandable. note the Gallery’s recent exhibition: ‘Aus- Dozens of institutions and individuals tralia and the Nobel Prize’. contributed more than 200 items, splen- There are just three laureates who were didly arranged and displayed by curator, born, educated through to tertiary level, Sarah Engledow. There were many photo- and did their prize-winning work in Aus- graphs simply and elegantly presented in tralia: Macfarlane Burnet (Physiology or unadorned wooden frames. A few had been Medicine, 1960), John Eccles (Physiology widely reproduced before, but the originals or Medicine, 1963), and most recently, carried a freshness, clarity and immediacy Peter Doherty (Physiology or Medicine, that was surprising. While Burnet and 1996). Others were born and educated here Florey stared sternly at each other across but worked overseas: Lawrence Bragg one room, the poignant photos of the intro- (Physics, 1915), Howard Florey (Physio- spective and serene John Cornforth, locked logy or Medicine, 1945), and John within his deafness, glanced away from the Cornforth (Chemistry, 1975). William viewer in another. A haunting photograph Bragg (Physics, 1915) and Robert of Patrick White arrested the visitor in a Robinson (Chemistry, 1947) had a signifi- third room. cant Australian connection and influence. Doherty’s award was also used as a Aleksandr Prokhorov (Physics, 1964) was focus for the Nobel Prize award ceremony born in Queensland but left Australia at itself. Swedish pride and precision was age seven and never returned. By contrast, evident in every detail: from the mundane 138 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 15 Number 1

but precise instructions given to laureates rebuild one of our most honoured research for receiving the award from the Swedish institutes, The John Curtin School of king, to the beautiful table-setting provided Medical Research at the Australian at the associated banquet. National University. The two speeches Yet a cloud hung over the exhibition together showed just how poorly Australia opening in December 2003. The jocular and its political leaders regard intellectual tone of the Australian Minister for the Arts, pursuits and achievements. who used his speech to make flippant The nature of the exhibition precluded remarks about our local Nobel Laureate, it travelling to other cities; a pity, since it contrasted sharply with the elegant dignity should have been seen by many more of the carefully chosen words of the Australians. Swedish ambassador. The Laureate him- John Jenkin self, Peter Doherty, used his speech to La Trobe University plead for the modest funds needed to Victoria

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