Scottish island of Staffa, through William Book Review Buckland's beautifully-composed Homeric monograph, Reliquiae Diluvianae (1823), to Section William Whewell's decidedly peculiar letters to Lady Malcolm (dispatched from the 'Underground Chamber' of Dolcoath Mine in Compiled by John Jenkin* 1828), caves attracted quite extraordinary attention for a while, and seem to have It has been suggested that this section of our brought out the best and the worst in visi- journal might carry brief reviews of museum tors. Then, by around 1840, caves fell from exhibitions when appropriate subjects arise; favour, like catastrophist geology and ecstatic that is, when an exhibition is clearly related aesthetics, never again to assume a promi- to the history of science in Australasia or the nent place on our intellectual horizons. south-west Pacific region. In the late decades of the eighteenth cen- At first sight this may seem a curious tury and especially during the opening dec- suggestion, since most exhibitions are likely ades of the nineteenth, caves were the rage to be closed before the review appears; but across Europe, and especially in Britain. there are other considerations. Reviews can Everyone - geologist or not - paid a visit inform readers who weren't able to see the to such sites as Fingal's Cave, Peak Cavern exhibition; they can enlighten researchers to and Speedwell Mine. Poems (Erasmus Dar- the riches often held invisibly in our win, Scott, Keats), paintings (Turner), music museums and awaken interest in the pri- (Mendelssohn), books of views (William mary objects, photographs and related docu- Westall), novels (Scott) and dozens of articles ments that are sometimes neglected by and scientific treatises resulted from such historians of science; and they can recognize visits and kept cave-lore and cave-worship and encourage the work of museums in pre- alive. senting the history of science in our region It is quite impossible for us to recapture and generally enhance the academic credibil- today either the frisson experienced by Buck- ity of museum work. land when he first crept into the bone-bear- We have decided, therefore, to accept this ing cave at Kirkdale in Yorkshire, or the suggestion for a trial period, and the first foreboding of Walter Scott as he listened to such review appears below. The book review the unearthly music emitted by the basalt editor would welcome information on forth- 'organ pipes9 at Fingal's Cave. We no longer coming exhibitions, people willing to write breathe in the thick atmosphere of myths reviews, and reader reaction to this and legends that surrounded caves two cen- innovation. turies ago, the 'sublime9 (the most common adjective associated with caves) is no longer Macleay Museum, University of Sydney, part of our vocabulary, and we are all, more Wellington Caves: From History to Prehistory or less, uniformitarian geologists and evolu- - an exhibition. tionary biologists, so that the deep issues which cave exploration might clear up have The abode of the sibyls and nymphs of no hold on us. Roman mythology, a site for the worship of This exhibition, put together with care, Mithras in Persia, the refuge of the five kings intelligence and obvious enthusiasm by of the Canaanites, lair of the terrible Cyclops Julian Holland (Curator of Scientific Instru- and sensual Calypso . . . caves have been ments at the Macleay Museum), tried never- home, prison and temple to some remarkable theless to convey the dynamics, the thrill and beings in our history. Our culture is, if one the substance of cave research in the early may say so, full of caves, those dark, often nineteenth century. The visitor who paid empty spaces at once fascinating and danger- attention to the subtle mix of visual and ous, seductive yet repellent. verbal materials would have obtained from For a few decades which overlap, not coin- this exhibition a strong sense that caves were cidentally, the golden age of geology and the not only a basis for the ever-so-slow-to- great era of Romanticism, caves burst onto develop science of vertebrate palaeontology the scientific scene. From Joseph Banks' 1774 in Australia but also for the somewhat more enthusiastic report of Fingal's Cave on the rapid transition to Lyellian geology in Britain. The exhibition offered some familiar items * Dr J.G. Jenkin is a Reader in Physics at La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria 3083. (works by ~~~kl~~dand cueer), but most items on display related to the discovery and Historical Records of Australian Science, 9(2) (December 1992) exploration in 1830 of the famous bones cave' 189 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 9, Number 2

in Wellington Valley, NSW. It was the 'very to be done there, and he had faith in the respectable Colonist and Magistrate' George abilities of astronomers and potential astron- Ranken who, in the words of John Dunmore omers in the Commonwealth. He supposed a Lang in the Sydney Gazette, made the dis- telescope such as he envisaged to be beyond covery which, Lang rightly foresaw, would the resources of any one Commonwealth 'excite very considerable interest in the sci- country; it had to be an international enter- entific world'. A large quantity of fossil prise. At first he proposed a joint effort by remains - some of which appeared in the Australia, Canada and the UK. For reasons exhibition - were retrieved and dispatched not immediately scientific, Canada soon to Europe for analysis and classification. The dropped out, and so this book is about an results showed that enormous creatures, now Anglo-Australian enterprise. extinct, formerly roamed not 200 miles from There is a Foreword by Paul Wild (Can- Sydney and that, as Robert Jameson berra) and Sir Robert Wilson (University explained in 1831, earlier catastrophist College, London), successive chairmen of the accounts notwithstanding, 'the same agent AAT Board immediately after 1975. They or agents that brought together the remains write that the AAT 'can lay claim to being of animals met in bone-caves and bone-brec- the best instrumented telescope in the world', cia in Europe, operated on New Holland'. and that it and its accompanying Schmidt While the bones from Wellington caves telescope 'have proved to be the most suc- helped to establish uniformitarian geology in cessful combination of telescopes in the Britain, they did little immediately to help world' for the sorts of astronomy for which a launch Australian earth sciences. Lang wrote combination is designed. Such statements in 1830 that the country was becoming 'daily leave little doubt about the status of the more and more interesting to the geographer book's subject matter! and geolotist', and he called for the establish- A word first about how it was possible to ment of a Lecturer in the Sydney College achieve such status. At the time there was a devoted to natural history and natural phi- general conviction amongst the astronomers losophy. Several decades were to pass before and technologists involved that, having such a position was established, by which regard to all aspects of the available technol- time the flood of interest in caves - at ogy, the optimal size for a large ground-based Wellington and elsewhere - had weakened optical telescope was about 150-inch aper- to a trickle. Julian Holland and the Macleay ture. The pioneering telescope emerging from Museum are to be congratulated for remind- this school of thought, after prolonged design ing us that deep and dark secrets were once studies, was the 150-inch telescope for the concealed in the secluded and sublime cav- Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) in erns of Europe and Australia. Arizona. In 1967, one condition of govern- ment approval for the construction of the Michael Shortland AAT was the acceptance of a generous offer Unit for the History and Philosophy of from KPNO to supply the results of those Science design studies. Also, when in 1967 the UK University of Sydney decided to construct the Schmidt telescope, the US authorities made available the S.C.B. Gascoigne, K.M. Proust and M.O. designs for the Palomar 40-inch Schmidt. Robins, The Creation of the Anglo-Austra- This considerable American generosity lian Observatory. Cambridge: Cambridge meant that the two telescopes for Australia University Press, 1990. xiii + 301 pp., illus., could be made far more speedily than other- $85.00. wise, and also that advantage could be taken of American experience in constructing the H.R.H. The Prince of Wales in 1974 inaugu- designs. At the same time, certain improve- rated the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) ments of more recent date could be on Siding Spring Mountain; it was commis- incorporated. sioned in 1975. In 1953 R.v.d.R. Woolley had This book is an important contribution to launched his proposal for a telescope in the the history of science that is in some respects southern hemisphere that would be at least unique in character. One is the singularly as capable as the best in the north. This appropriate relationship of the team of book is essentially the history of what hap- authors to their subject; intimate without pened between 1953 and 1975. being partisan. Professor Gascoigne is a Woolley was Director of Mt Stromlo highly distinguished Australian astronomer; Observatory from 1939 to 1955. He was over- ever since World War I1 he has been more whelmed by the richness of the southern sky actively involved than any other single indi- and the huge amount of astronomy waiting vidual in the build-up of Australian optical Book Review Section

astronomy and its instrumentation. In 1967- account of those 'stormy years', when so 74 he was Astronomical Adviser to the AAT many strong-minded and dedicated person- project; in 1974-75 he was Commissioning alities found themselves in conflict. It is Astronomer for the telescope. Mr Robins has important for many reasons that the record spent his career in a considerable range of be set out now, not guessed at in years to science and technology, particularly space- come; which may be why the late 'Taffy' science. Two men who figure prominently in Bowen urged the writing of this book. the history of the AAT are the late Sir Harrie Chapter 9, on 'The Beginnings of the Observ- Massey and J.F. Hosie. For many years atory', sketches the development of the AAO Robins worked in London with Massey; in up to the inauguration of the AAT by the 1972 Robins followed Hosie on the Science Prince of Wales in 1974, the various inaugu- Research Council and in 1973-78 as a mem- ral addrsses being reproduced in Appendix 8. ber of the AAT Board. Miss Proust is an A wide-field Schmidt telescope has become Australian lawyer who was Secretary of that an indispensible partner to a great reflector Board from 1983 to 1989. like the AAT. Most fortunately, about 1970 it Gascoigne saw all the Australian happen- became financially possible to embark upon ings on the spot; he writes with intimate the construction at Siding Spring of the knowledge about the technical matters, but afore-mentioned 48-inch Schmidt; most for- without being too 'technical'! Robins saw the tunately, V.C. Reddish (Astronomer Royal for British side; he and Proust had a thorough Scotland) was put in charge; most fortu- knowledge of the administrative aspects, and nately, C.G. Wynne of the RGO invented a they must be more familiar than anyone else great improvement of the optical design. All with the mass of official records. In particu- proceeded so excellently that in August 1973 lar, it must have fallen to Proust to negotiate it could formally be opened by Bengt Strom- the governmental agreement (dated gren, President of the International Astro- 1 January 1988) that made the Anglo-Aus- nomical Union. Chapter 11 is an account of tralian Observatory a two-telescope all this. observatory. 'Some achievements of the AAT' are The first two chapters sketch the scientific recorded in chapter 12. Chapter 13 describes and technical background to the theme. some matters of administration after 1975, Chapter 3 is a concise sketch of 'the tangled ending with the record of the full incorpora- web of proposals, counter-proposals, deliber- tion of the Schmidt telescope into the AAO, ations and negotiations for a large telescope with its headquarters at Epping, near Syd- in the southern hemisphere in both Australia ney. On the strength of its performance to and the UK from the mid-1950s until 1967. date and the promise of additional new I have always marvelled at the vision and conviction that sustained the astronomers instrumentation, the final chapter offers a through so many frustrations and near fatal justifiably-optimistic view of the future of the setbacks, until in April 1967 came the mirac- AAO. ulous arrival of Australian agreement to open Some of the nine appendices have been substantive negotiations with the British mentioned; others supply further useful Government about an AAT. The Agreement information. There is an extensive bibliog- is fully discussed in chapter 4, and the text raphy. The text is well illustrated by dia- of the AAT Agreement Act 1970 is reproduced grams and many fascinating photographs, in Appendix 1. especially those of many of the leading per- The next three chapters are clear accounts sonalities in the narrative. The book is admi- of discussions regarding site, building, optics rably produced by CUP. and mounting of the telescope. All these Due reference is made to a detailed matters called for earnest debate and mature account of the UK end of the operation given judgement, but they provoked no unforeseen by Sir Bernard Love11 in the 1987 volume of controversy. Unanticipated differences of the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronom- view emerged, however, when it came to the ical Society. I am somewhat surprised not to management of the telescope. Chapter 8 is see more mention of the part he played called 'Telescope or Observatory' because the himself in this history, since he was Chair- root of the argument was whether the astron- man of the Astronomy Space and Radio omers had been talking about a telescope to Board of SRC during a crucial period; but he be managed by an existing institution in was self-effacing in such affairs. It should be Australia, or about a telescope and its Board more fully recognised, however, that he was that would become a new 'observatory'. The generous in not pressing the claims of Jodrell authors must have found it an exacting and Bank at a time when they might have delicate task to write this well-balanced delayed the progress of the AAO. Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 9, Number 2

The book should be in every library of the Robert Watson Watt (Three Steps to Victory, history of science as well as every library for 1957) and A.P. Rowe (One Story of Radar, astronomers of every sort. 1948). But these books give the review from the top; missing until recently have been the William McCrea stories of the younger scientists who actually University of Sussex did the research. E.G. (Taffy) Bowen, in his England book Radar Days (1987), filled much of this gap. Now his story has been complemented R. Hanbury Brown, Boffin: A Personal by Hanbury Brown, whose radar experiences Story of the Early Days of Radar, Radio spanning eleven years are related in the first Astronomy and Quantum Optics. Bristol: half of his book. Most of that time was spent Adam Hilger,, 1991; vi + 184 pp., illus., in the airborne radar group formed and led £17.50. by Bowen. Hanbury Brown did a lot of flying in RAF aircraft, sometimes with Bowen, Few people today can recall the fascination experimenting with radars designed to detect of the early days of wireless: voices carried ships and submarines or to intercept night through space from distant places and coaxed bombers. Their stories of this period do not from the earphones of a crystal receiver or, overlap unduly, and in 1940 Bowen left the when aided by thermionic valves, from a horn group and went with the Tizard Mission to speaker. For some who grew up in that era, the USA. their imaginations fired by the magic of it The word 'boffin' today means a research all and the need for deeper understanding, it scientist, but during the war it was more was the beginning of a lifelong devotion to specific. According to Watson Watt, a boffin science. Professor Robert Hanbury Brown was a scientist engaged in operational FRS was one of these, and in this book he research. He suggested that the name was succeeds in conveying the sense of purpose invented in the RAF Fighter Interception and excitement which inspired and sustained Unit and was typified by Hanbury Brown, him through the three scientific adventures who worked and flew with the Unit during of the subtitle. much of 1940-41. His high-altitude flying His path to science, however, was hardly came to a premature end one night when he straightforward. Born in India, where his was hospitalised after failure of his oxygen father served in the British Army, Hanbury supply, and again later with damaged hear- Brown's education in Kent was mainly in the ing. But by then %he early days of airborne classics because his preparatory school was radar were over. Nothing which I have done for the 'sons of gentlemen and so taught no since then has been so exciting, so absorbing science! Fortunately, his growing interest in and so worthwhile: Posted to America to the subject was nurtured by his guardian, a introduce the system to the US Air Force former student of J.J. Thompson at Cam- and subsequently to take part in another bridge, who in his private laboratory initiated combined project, he often wished to be him into the mysteries of electricity and nearer the events in Europe, but the war was wireless. Emerging at last from Brighton over before he returned to Britain. Technical College with a first-class degree in By 1947 Hanbury Brown was ready for a engineering and a scholarship, he embarked change. He gives an entertaining account of in 1935 on a PhD at Imperial College, a busy and successful two-year period as a London. junior partner in a research consultancy run There he developed a second love, this by Watson Watt, but this was merely an time inspired by the magic of flying, and in interlude. Accepting an offer by A.C.B. Love11 due course he made the inaugural flight for at Manchester University, he began a study the University of London Air Squadron. But of 'cosmic noise', the then mysterious radio his PhD was never completed, for he was emission from space. Thus he joined the persuaded by the Rector of Imperial College, ranks of many other ex-radar scientists who Sir Henry Tizard, to join an urgent Air went on to pioneer the emerging science of Ministry project. Thus Hanbury Brown found radio astronomy, the catalyst for the great himself in 1936 in a small team of scientists surge of post-war astronomical discoveries. at Bawdsey Manor, the secret laboratory on Hanbury Brown's part in this great enter- the Suffolk coast, where the first British prise is related in the second half of the book. radars were being developed. His first year His story brings out vividly the slow and there was 'one of the happiest I have ever laborious nature of many of the early exper- spent'. iments. A 218-ft diameter fixed paraboloid Personal accounts of the early years of at the Jodrell Bank research station was radar have been published since the war by converted into a radio telescope. Its pencil Book Review Section beam was moved by tilting the very tall feed- the University of Sydney, the new instrument support mast, a task he compares to steering (after fabrication in England) was erected at the first large optical telescope built by Rosse Narrabri in NSW. It was no easy task to put in 1845. Using the clumsy but powerful the complex installation to work in this instrument, Hanbury Brown, with Cyril Haz- remote location. The story of the family's ard, showed that many localised sources encounter with the heat and insects of the belonged to our own Galaxy, a conclusion Australian bush is told with humour and an which resulted in conflict with Martin Ryle appreciation of the good aspects of life in a at Cambridge. Later, after three months of country town. With the instrument function- effort, they produced the first map of an ing at last, Hanbury Brown resigned from extra-galactic source. Manchester University and moved to Sydney, This research provided strong support for accepting Messel's offer of a Chair of Astron- Lovell's proposal for a 250-ft, fully-steerable omy. By determination, hard work and the radio telescope at Jodrell Bank, but Hanbury dedication of John Davis and others who had Brown was only peripherally involved in that joined him from Jodrell Bank, all of the troubled project. Soon after joining Lovell, he objectives of a seven-year observing program had invented the intensity interferometer for were accomplished. measuring the sizes of small sources, a There was clearly an exciting field of highly significant development which was research for a more powerful intensity inter- later to dominate his work. An outline history ferometer, but ironically, after four years of and the scientific basis of this instrument planning, technical advances indicated that have been given in an earlier book (R. Han- a modernised version of the classical Mich- bury Brown, The Intensity Interferometer, elson interferometer might also be able to 1974). Here he relates the more personal work through atmospheric turbulence and stories behind the enterprise, including his would be more sensitive and cheaper. It was very fruitful and often amusing collaboration an agonising choice, but in 1975 existing with Richard Twiss on the mathematical plans were sadly put aside and the long theory. The unique properties of the new development of the new scheme was started. interferometer eventually proved unneces- For Hanbury Brown, it was 'one of the most sary for solving the problems for which it painful decisions I have ever had to make'. had been devised, and Hanbury Brown Ten years later, with the pilot model success- turned aside to develop conventional interfer- ful, John Davis started planning the Sydney ometers for long baselines. University Stellar Interferometer. Hanbury In 1954, however, they noticed a previ- Brown had demonstrated the potential of ously overlooked property of the intensity high-resolution optical astronomy and initi- interferometer: its output information was ated the building of a powerful new observa- immune to even violent fluctuations of the tory here; he could now return to England. received signals caused by the ionosphere. His original plan to spend two years in Aus- The same principle implemented at the wave- tralia had stretched to twenty seven! length of light, using photo-electric detection, All this Australian experience is contained might enable star diameters to be measured, in the final quarter of the book, and this independent for the first time of atmospheric compression is my one disappointment. Dur- turbulence which had limited earlier ing his stay here, Hanbury Brown was in attempts. To many physicists, the proposed touch with the broad scientific scene and instrument seemed to violate fundamental often, especially during the lengthy design quantum theory. Hanbury Brown gives an studies, was directly involved. But this is a absorbing and humorous outline of the very personal story and some of the discus- intense and lengthy controversy which sions are quite brief. Curiously, there is no erupted. When the Hanbury BrownPTwiss reference anywhere to Taffy Bowen, although ideas were at least theoretically vindicated, there are several to his Division of Radi- a difficult aspect of quantum optics had been ophysics in Sydney and a passing mention of clarified. In an admirable experiment using friction with Messel. two large Army searchlight mirrors, Han- The book concludes with a short Epilogue, bury Brown produced a final convincing proof where the author turns to the relation with measurements, through a winter of between science and religion. In a previous appalling atmospheric conditions, of the size book, The Wisdom of Science (1986), he has of the star Sirius. The way was now clear to argued that they need not be in conflict; both plan the construction of a full-scale stellar are fallible attempts to make sense of the intensity interferometer. mysterious Universe. Here he illustrates his For several reasons, not least an offer of ideas with accounts of two talks given a shared funding by Professor Harry Messel at decade ago. The audience reactions were Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 9, Number 2 hardly encouraging. Confronted by miscon- enon, and it could be read in conjunction ceptions about the nature and role of science, with Alfred Crosby's Ecological Imperialism: 'I was wasting my time'. The Biological Expansion of Europe 900- Notwithstanding the reservation above, 1900, reviewed here in 1987 (HRAS 7(1) ). this is an absorbing and thoughtful book by While Lines' book is an environmental an outstanding experimentalist, whose fas- history of Australia, the reader should not cination with scientific discovery has led him expect the documentation of environmental through an extraordinary diversity of experi- destruction species by species or ecosystem ences. It should be widely read by historians by ecosystem, for that is not Lines' aim. His as well as scientists. is a more interesting and more useful account - in effect a gigantic literary collage, H.C. Minnett whose pieces illustrate the changing phases Sydney of Australia's environmental history. Many examples of despoilation are described, some William J. Lines, Taming the Great South in great detail, to reveal the forces which Land: A History of the Conquest of Nature in shaped the European exploitation of the Aus- Australia. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1991. xx tralian landscape and its inhabitants. Thus + 337 pp., illus., $34.95. the brutal and uncontrolled slaughter to the verge of extinction of seals and whales in the White Australia indeed has a black history. early years of the nineteenth century is viv- The blackness of obscenities perpetrated by idly described in chapter three, entitled 'No Europeans on Aboriginal Australians during Eden'. the past two centuries is increasingly colour- To attempt to explore two centuries of ing studies of Australian history, while Australian environmental history is an enor- another dark outcome of European domina- mous task; to attempt to explain such a tion is environmental despoilation. Over the complex history in terms of the prevailing decades, many people have protested against social, political and economic pressures human and environmental black deeds, but requires monumental inter-disciplinary environmental destruction has attracted lit- effort. The availability of documentary evi- tle historical study. Bill Lines' Taming the dence varies across the disciplines and the Great South Land provides a timely and decades, so it is not surprising that there is substantial study in this direction and a variation in the accuracy and degree of explores and exposes Australia's dark history detail through the chapters. A single volume in both the racial and environmental sense. can accommodate only a limited litany of It i easy to bemoan the fact that this book detail, and overall the book is engagingly and tells a story that should have been told dec- powerfully written. ades ago, but then it would have been consid- Chapter one, 'A continent adrift', sets the ered a marginal exercise. Taming the Great geographical stage for Lines' story with a South Land is an Australian history of its racy overview of Australia's Gondwanan time. It reflects attitudes which have at last origins and the evolution and extinction of become acceptable within the dominant Aus- its inhabitants. In the chapter's final para- tralian culture. A green, post-bicentennial, graph, Lines echoes Suzuki's sentiments and post-modernist history of Australia, it does presages the main thesis of his story: 'In 200 not celebrate white invasion and domination. years, European technology, warfare, culture Instead, Lines seeks to reconstruct the story and political economy have swept across the of European exploration and exploitation by Australian landscape as an expression of considering the attitudes which shaped two manifest destiny, changing forever the face centuries of European destruction of land- of the land . . . In under 200 years, a natural scape and culture - a history of the conquest world millions of years in the making, and of nature in Australia, as the book's sub-title an Aboriginal culture of 60 000 years dura- tells us. tion, vanished before the voracious, insatiable Lines' story is not unique to Australia, as demands of a foreign invasion.' David Suzuki notes in the foreword, but has In his second chapter, 'Terra Incognita', been repeated in many parts of the world: Lines sets the intellectual scene. He dis- 'Driven by a profound disconnection from the cusses the relationship between the blossom- land, newcomers to the New World sought to ing of scientific inquiry and the European tame it and its human and nonhuman occu- craving to dominate and exploit the natural pants. The combined technology and the world - human and nonhuman, animate western attitude of rightful domination over and inanimate - and explains how the Brit- Nature were unstoppable'. Lines' story pro- ish discovery, exploration and invasion of the vides a case-study of a widespread phenom- eastern coast of terra nullius was timely for Book Review Section

science and empire. It occurred on the crest Industry was passed. It was this Institute of an Enlightenment-fuelled faith in and (not mentioned by Lines) which, without its thirst for the scientific acquisition of new own laboratories, funded prickly pear and knowledge, and served British political and some of the other 1920's research which is scientific goals. The influential ideas of Fran- mentioned. The Science and Industry cis Bacon, Joseph Banks, William Howitt and Research Act of 1926 - not the Common- Thomas Huxley are considered. wealth Scientific and Industrial Research Subsequent chapters, 'A camping ground Bill - allowed the establishment of the for profit', 'Dark deeds in a sunny land', Council for Scientific and Industrial 'World quarry', and 'Not by conquest follow Research (CSIR), whose laboratories and mining and pastoral expansion, legislation divisions later grew into the CSIRO. Boris and railways, droughts and strikes, wars and Schedvin's history of CSIRO, Shaping Science conservation, slaughter and settlement, to and Industry (reviewed in HRAS 7(2) ), is not contentious environmental issues of the mentioned. 1980s: the damming of Tasmania's wild riv- Lines' undeveloped claim that CSIFUO sci- ers, a road through the Daintree rainforest, entists were charged with the task previously oil-drilling on the Great Barrier Reef, the undertaken by member of mid-nineteenth- Wesley Vale pulp mill, logging in National century acclimatisation societies is both Estate forests, the Very Fast Train and the insightful and overly simplistic. CSIWO Multifunction Polis. It is a breathtakingly officers inherited a twentieth-century version compelling tale. of the acclimatiser's perceived duty to For historians of science, Lines' book is of improve nature's landscape. However, as well interest not so much for what it says about as 'improving' and exploiting natural ecosys- science but for what it omits. In larger his- tems, CSIWO scientists also sought to under- tories there is always the problem of accu- stand and rectify damage to the landscape rately situating that other culture - science. which had resulted from inappropriate Euro- Due recognition is rarely given to the scien- pean land management practices and unfor- tific endeavour which underlies more obvious seen consequences of other European historical change, and this environmental activities, such as the introduction and history is no exception. However, while not escape of the rabbit. Inadequate attention is adequately exploring the scientific founda- given to the influence of CSIR/O research on tions, Lines does give some scientific credits. agricultural, pastoral and other changes to He provides occasional glimpses of the impor- the landscape. Francis Ratcliffe's investiga- tance of science in determining landscape tions in the 1930s of Australia's arid pastoral change - such as William Farrer's breeding regions are noted, but not CSIROIO's other of the popular Federation wheat, which col- pasture research. Nor does Lines mention oured much of Australia's landscape in the crucial CSIRO research in his discussion of early decades of this century. the clearing in the 1950s and 1960s of vast While an adequate exploration of the influ- areas of Queensland brigalow for pasture. ence of science on landscape change would The technological masterpiece of the Snowy fill another book, the paucity of scientific Mountains Scheme is also discussed, but not episodes in Lines' story and the errors the research into soil erosion it provoked and therein illustrate the problems posed to his- required; nor, despite mention of various con- torians by science. Thus, although Lines does servation issues, is the landscape destruction mention early-twentieth-century hopes for of the devastating dust storms of the 1930s Australian science in the development of the and the consequent formation in several British Empire, and post-WWI federal fund- states of soil conservation bodies which ing for Australian science, he does not men- orchestrated soil erosion research. tion the importance of Britain's Empire Lines' book reflects the current inade- Marketing Board in the funding of Austra- quate presence given to science in general lian agricultural science in the inter-war histories, and highlights the need for histo- years. As Lines correctly notes, Prime Min- rians to become better acquainted with sci- ister Hughes' considerable faith in science ence. Despite this, Taming the Great South was crucial to federal involvement in Austra- Land provides a fascinating back-drop from lian science; but it was not a Council for which to discuss the place of science in the Scientific Research (CSR) but an Advisory complexity of Australia's environmental his- Council of Science and Industry which was tory, and it is certainly worthy of the atten- appointed in 1916 to prepare a national plan tion of those interested in the history of for Australian science. Years later, after a Australian science. It could be read in tan- precarious ride through parliament, the Bill dem with a book with a very different style establishing the Institute of Science and but which covers a similar literary landscape Historied Records of Australian Science, Volume 9, Number 2

- Paul Carter's The Road to Botany Bay: An German community in Melbourne. Neu- Exploration of Landscape and History. mayer, who attended Carl Rumker's nautical school at Hamburg, created the Flagstaff Linden Gillbank Observatory to conduct regular meteorologi- History and Philosophy of Science cal and magnetic observations in Melbourne. Department He started a magnetic survey of Victoria University of Melbourne which, he hoped, might reveal auriferous tracts of land. Yet the instruments he David Walker and Jiirgen Tampke (Eds), deployed were not yet good enough to utilize From Berlin to the Burdekin: The German the findings for practical purposes, which Contribution to the Development ofAustralian indicates that, while at Melbourne, Neumay- Science, Explsration and the Arts. Sydney: er's ideas were far ahead of his time. Neu- New South Wales University Press, 1991. xi mayer was, moreover, according to Home, the + 274 pp., illus., $44.95. first professionally trained physicist in Aus- tralia, who also introduced the 'Humboldtian The title, though poetic, seems to indicate a field-based observational and world-encom- rather narrow subject; perhaps an explora- passing style' in scientific research, akin to tory expedition by Ludwig Leichhardt, the the field research methods of Leichhardt. Prussian explorer who figures prominently Ray Sumner, who in her doctoral thesis in the book. The subtitle sounds quite differ- has in a painstaking and detective-like way ent; readers may assume that they are demolished Charitas Bischoff's story of her offered an encompassing treatment of the mother Amalie Dietrich's Australian sojourn, German contribution to Australian science offers a brief biography of this German bot- and arts, and the story of Germans exploring anist, who provided the ideal of a heroine for the continent as well. A quick glance at the two generations of middle-class German table of contents, however, helps us to come women. For about a decade, she single-hand- to a more sober assessment of what might edly collected plants and animals in Queens- be expected. Indeed, the book contains much land for the Godeffroy Museum in Hamburg. more than the poetic title suggests, but less The Australian experience of Roberg von than the subtitle promises. Somewhat mod- Lendenfeld is the subject of the paper by estly, the editors reveal that the book is, so David Sandeman, whose major interest to speak, a child conceived at the bicentenary seems to have been the exploration of the celebrations, with its symposia and all that. Australian Alps. It was von Lendenfeld who The thirteen contributions are of very dif- determined which peak was the highest; the ferent quality - some excellent and thought one he named Mount Townsend was higher provoking, others less convincing. The first than the former Mount Kosciusko, known in group of five essays, headed 'Science and 1885 as Mueller's Peak, but the names of the Exploration', opens with a paper by Edward two have since been interchanged. Kynaston on Ferdinand von Miiller, the great The second group of papers combines German botanist in Melbourne. Here readers three contributions on 'Encountering Abor- will be disappointed, as we are offered a iginal Culture' Marjorie Tipping's essay on psychological explanation of the strange sci- the artists Ludwig Becker and Eugene GuBr- entist but learn nothing new of the man, on ard is not, as its title suggests, confined to whom the author wrote a book some years the Aboriginal habitat, illustrated by excel- ago. It is sad to discover that the explana- lent pictures by the two; it clarifies much of tions of Muller's escapism are still accom- the artists' backgrounds, their styles and panied by some of the mistakes that marred techniques, and their lives. the earlier book. Harder facts are offered, on An excellent and thought-provoking paper Leichhardt, by Colin Roderick, who attempts is Walter Veit's 'In search of Carl Strehlow: to discover the explorer from his fields of Lutheran missionary and Australian anthro- study in Germany, Britain and France before pologist'. It attempts an explanation of why he embarked for Australia. Strehlow's important contributions to Austra- Rod home's paper on 'Georg von Neumayer lian anthropology have either been forgotten and the Flagstaff Observatory, Melbourne' is or not been given their deserved place in the an excellent combination of the biographical history of the discipline. A number of his method with a socio-political and historical works were published in German, the two approach to the development of science in world wars resulted in much of the German Australia. We are told that in those days, contribution to the development of Australia when public money was scarce, Neumayer being swept under the carpet, and most was able to enlist support for his studies in important, Strehlow's methods, based on a Victoria from the Bavarian king and the knowledge of Aboriginal languages and an Book Review Section

'understanding' approach;were by the turn Germans ih that colony to promote an Aus- of the century pushed aside by the seemingly tralian national consciousness, which would 'more scientific' methods propagated by relieve them of the stigma of not being from Andrew Lang and Baldwin Spencer. The 'cul- British stock, has never been examined ture-clash' apparent in the different works of before. Carl Miicke, a 'forty-eighter' from Ber- Strehlow and Spencer, as well as Strehlow's lin, was a prominent spokesman of the Ger- unrecognised research results written in the man community in South Australia, which German medium and hidden in learned jour- anguished over the development of a 'bicul- nals in Germany, will have to be rediscov- turalism' that could make German culture a ered, a task upon which the author has constituent element in Australia's progress. obviously embarked. Veit hopes his project The commonality of the 'Teutonic races', a may also help to depict 'historically impor- frequently employed phrase in Britain and tant inter-cultural relations between Austra- Germany, eventually proved to be a fallacy. lia and the German-speaking countries: H. Priessnitz titles his contribution 'The Silke Beinssen-Hesse investigates 'The 'Vossification" of Ludwig Leichhardt', mean- study of Australian Aboriginal culture by ing the transformation of the historical German anthropologists of the Frobenius explorer into a symbolic figure in literature, Institute'. The results of the research con- as portrayed by Patrick White in his novel ducted by this famous Frankfurt institute in Voss. Disappointing to the historian, there is 1938 were not published, due to the outbreak very little in this paper that might give an of the Second World War, and during the war idea of the 'historical' Leichhardt, the start- much of the documentary material was lost ing point, so to speak, of the changes he or destroyed. The author also focuses on the underwent under the pens of poets and nov- controversy in the post-war period between elists. But there is much of his metamorpho- Andreas Lommel and Helmut Petri, due to sis in literary enterprises, which, one must their different approaches to anthropology. admit, have been a very powerful influence She traces in Lommel's ideas a spirit of gloom in shaping the figure of Leichhardt in the and doom in the thirties, and a basic dislike public mind. of Austrlia. Petri, on the other hand, is seen Robert Sellick will, in the course of time, much more positively, as a competent scien- confront us with the historical figure in his tist in the field. The author does not hide an 'Leichhardt's diaries', which he has begun to important personal interest in the subject: edit. Yet how difficult it is to piece the her father had been a contact person for the written words together and how elusive the Frobenius Institute in Australia. hero remains even then, is a fascinating story The third group of five papers is headed in itself. Historians may still hope to gain a 'Literature and Identity'. Irmeline Veit- more complete view of this great German- Brause writes about Hugo Zoller's view of Australian explorer than they have hitherto Australian society. Different from the bulk of been offered, by the study of fragmentary German travellers to Australia, Zoller was a sources and under the influence of masters journalist (employed by the Kolnische of the pen. Zetung), who presented facts and figures Volker Raddatz' 'Intercultural encounters: about developments in Australia. In his out- Aborigines and white explorers in fiction and look a cosmopolitan, an Anglophile and a non-fiction' is a befitting conclusion of the German nationalist, Zoller was mainly inter- subject. One of the major difficulties between ested in British colonialism and Australia's Aborigines and Europeans was the want of economic progress. The author interprets communication between them, and thereby a Zoller's concern with the preservation of lack of understanding. The author compares 'Deutschtum' - the character, language and some of Leichhardt's descriptions of his ways of life of German immigrants - as an encounters with Aborigines with passages early form of 'multiculturalism'. She visual- from White's Voss. The literary field reflects ises in Zoller a 'precursor of the transnational the historical: both texts reveal an incompat- politics of ethnicity'. One wonders whether ibility in understanding which was bound to Zoller really deserves such a modern epithet, end in failure. and whether the deployment of present day One would have wished that the editors vocabulary, customary in political science, is had devoted more care to the book, so finely a useful way to understand the past. made up by the publishers. In the bibliog- Gerhard Fischer unearths an interesting raphy, Gerhard Fischer's work Enemy Aliens aspect of German intellectuals in Australia is listed under the name of D.C. Mulvaney, in his paper 'Imagining an Australian nation: whereas the index gives two Mulvaneys, D.J. the German communitv of South Australia and John. Ludwig Becker and Ludwig Beher during the nineteenth century'. The drive of are both mentioned in the index, when they Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 9, Number 2 are obviously the same person. There are a sional classes in the name of greater social number of spelling mistakes, as in the case efficiency; but this unwelcome picture seems of Spanish, Gottingen or Trebatsch. The less convincing in the light of the Australian index seems to be confined to the names of experience. Contingent factors, such as the people and places, but occasionally other deep divisions within the medical profession items are included, such as 'Biology, develop- between general practitioners and specialists ment of theories . . .' But where are equiva- and the tensions between federal and state lent terms like anthropology or the many governments, Gillespie argues, were far more other sciences mentioned in text? A closer important in the peculiar history of health examination of the proofs could have saved care in Australia than any logic of social the publisher and editors from such flaws, in control. a book where outstanding contributions mix Gillespie opens his thesis by assessing the with papers that do not enhance its quality. state of the Australian medical profession in the 1920s. Most doctors were self-employed Johannes Voigt general practitioners who aspired to work on Historisches Institut a 'fee-for-service' basis, but the number of Universitat Stuttgart, Germany patients who could afford such service was small. Therefore, many of the doctors had to James Gillespie, The Price of Health: Aus- earn their livelihood by joining urban, work- tralian Governments and Medical Politics ing-class practices run by mutual aid associ- 1910-1960. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- ations - the 'friendly societies'. In these sity Press, 1991. xvii + 358 pp., $49.95. 'lodge' practices, doctors were paid a single fee for each member of the society they vis- In The Price ofHealth, James Gillespie exam- ited, regardless of the treatment they dis- ines the history of the provision of medical pensed. The Australian Branch of the British care in Australia during the years 1920 to Medical Association was strongly opposed to 1950. Historians and sociologists have writ- this arrangement because it undermined the ten extensively about what happened in independence of the profession and also Great Britain and the United States during reduced the pool of potential fee-paying cus- those years, principally because the organi- tomers. Hence, it sought strict enforcement zation of medical care in these countries of a demeaning 'means test', so that the seemed to be predicated on two radically middle-class and wealthier members of the different visions of how a liberal democracy working-class were barred from admission to might increase public access to doctors and the lodge practices. But the Association also hospitals. To what extent should the govern- realized that this relatively wealthier section ment intervene in the market for medical care: should medical professionals become of the public had to be enabled to obtain salaried public employees, or should they medical care under the more lucrative fee- remain independent providers while the gov- for-service regime. ernment or private health insurance funds During the decade after the First World help the public obtain their services? While War, expanding and rationalizing public British doctors became salaried employees, access to medical care became a subject of their American counterparts were paid by considerable political importance. 'National the patients or by private health insurance hygienists', led by Sir Raphael Cilento, funds. argued that government should become more These were the two examples that seem interested in this subject, and especially in to have guided the deliberations of successive promoting the prevention of disease, since it Australian governments, Labor and Liberal was the chief source of social and economic alike, as they sought to increase public access disorder. The national hygienists prposed to to medical care. But as Gillespie points out, establish a network of regional diagnostic the final outcome was rather extraordinary; laboratories staffed by salaried medical Australia is today the only liberal democracy officers to aid and educate provincial and to have first built a national system for rural doctors about the wonders of a more health care and then to have dismantled it specialized and systematic approach to med- within a few years. According to Gillespie, ical work. The Commonwealth Department such an outcome lends added significance to of Health, established in 1921, was strongly this first comprehensive study of medical influenced by this technocratic vision of the care in Australia. Much recent work seems future of medical care in Australia. However, to him to have depicted the emergence of the British Medical Association was opposed national health services as a step toward the to it; the Association objected to state inter- creation of a society controlled by the profes- ference in the organization of medical care Book Review Section implied by the subordination of curative to medical profession strongly objected. These preventive medicine. plans were nonetheless immensely popular State governments were as unconvinced with the public. Once again, however, the about the merits of the national hygienists' antagonism between federal and state plan as the medical profession. What effect authorities blocked any reform of the health- would greater state intervention have on vol- care system. untary organizations? Would they be dis- With the end of the war, enthusiasm for placed by public ones? In the poorer states, any kind of social planning waned and the the Labor Party supported universal access opportunity to create a national health ser- to medical care by encouraging the expansion vice dissolved. State intervention in the orga- of friendly societies. Here there was appar- nization of medical care could be dismissed ently more fertile ground for the ideas of the far more easily as 'socialist', an accusation national hygienists; Raphael Cilento was which weighed very heavily in the Cold War. appointed in 1934 to the position of Director Furthermore, drug therapies developed dur- General of Health for Queensland, where he ing the war had begun to transform social sought to mesh the national hygienist and diseases such as tuberculosis into problems Laborite programs. But the Labor Party was for therapeutic medicine. This shift was not prepared to sacrifice the autonomy of its accompanied by changes in the National allies in the friendly societies to a centralized Health and Medical Research Council. The health service controlled by medical profes- former bastion of the national hygienists was sionals alone. now dominated by research scientists rather The proposals for a national health insur- than public health officers, and they had a ance scheme which were aired during 1937 very different vision of the future of medical and 1938 drew far greater support from the care. medical profession and from governments, It was within this more conservative both Liberal and Labor, because they only environment that the government of New aimed to expand access to medical care South Wales sought to introduce a limited within the existing institutional structures. scheme to improve public access to medical But even these more conservative plans were care by establishing a Medical Benefits Fund resisted. General practitioners objected to similar to the Blue Cross fund in the United the panel practices that would be created to States. This scheme was more acceptable to contain the costs of medical services because the medical profession, as subscribers would they would weaken their professional status. have no input into policy decisions about the The Labor Party opposed them because they organization of the Fund and there would be were to be funded by taxing workers' wages. no panel practices; but unlike the United The effort to establish national health insur- States, the Australian middle-class would not ance died with the resignation of the Liberal cooperate and invest in the Medical Benefits government in 1939. Fund. Eventually, the federal government The organization of medical care became took up the scheme and began to subsidize a crucially-important issue as the incoming patients' purchases of medical services on a Labor government prepared for war. At first fee-for-service basis. Even this scheme col- the medical profession resisted all attempts lapsed, however, as the Labor government to reorganize its services; however, as more was defeated in the 1949 election. doctors enlisted, fewer could provide services Confirming the universality of concern to civilians and the pressure on the medical about the organization of medical care, the profession mounted. The need for a shift to incoming Liberal government continued the contract and salaried medical services effort to expand public access to doctors and became apparent to all parties. Thus, from hospitals. However, the Liberals sought to 1940 to 1943, national hygienists again rely more on market forces than the author- planned for a salaried national health ser- ity of government; the role of the Common- vice, which they hoped would become a per- wealth Department of Health was to be manent institution after the war. But their reduced to a minimum and all ideas of fos- gains were swiftly reversed as the tides of tering preventive care were abandoned. The war turned and the earlier sense of crisis Treasury would instead subsidize friendly waned. The Labor government began to plan societies for the working class and private for wider access to medical care within a benefit funds for the middle class; but this broader social welfare program. The working program stalled once again before the histor- class was, for the first time, to choose ical antagonism between the British Medical between different doctors and hospitals, Association and the friendly socieites. something to which both the most radical In 1951 the friendly societies finally statists and self-described liberals in the agreed to drop their support for panel prac- Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 9, Number 2 tices and provide coverage on a fee-for-service This is the third volume in a series on the basis. Having relinquished all attachments naval, scientific and social activities of the to the values that had inspired their organi- Imperial Russian Navy in the South Pacific. zation during the nineteenth century, the The author, Glynn Barratt, is the Professor friendly societies were now on their way to of Russian at Carleton University in Canada, becoming simply health insurance funds. and it is clear that he has studied many of Given this conclusion, it is difficult to the artefacts from the Pacific which are pre- agree with Gillespie that the history of med- served in Russia. He has also had access to ical care in Australia undermines current unpublished accounts of Russian voyages to interpretations of the evolution of national the Pacific Ocean. Many of these sources, health services. Alternatively, what is the and even the published sources, are relatively evidence for the claim that the evolution of unknown to English-speaking scientists. the Australian organization of medical care This further book by Barratt is therefore to was simply the product of uniquely Austra- be warmly welcomed. lian circumstances rather than, as Gillespie Part one of the book is devoted to the visit writes, a local variation on 'a standard inter- of the Russian expedition led by Vasilii Mick- national pattern'? It's hard to say. Interna- hailovich Golovnin to the islands of Aneityum tional comparisons could provide such and Tana in Vanuatu (formerly New evidence. Gillespie does often refer to Hebrides). It begins with an account of the developments in Great Britain, the United friendship and cooperation between the Brit- States and other countries, but these com- ish and Russian navies - what Barratt parisons are not so systematic and directed refers to as the 'Anglo-Russian understand- that they can help the reader to understand ing and alliance in the wars against Napo- why Australia followed its exceptional path. leonic France'. Under this 'understanding' He also emphasizes repeatedly the crucial many junior Russian naval officers were able importance of conflicts between federal and to spend time (often years) aboard British state authorities to explain the failure to ships as 'volunteers' and study navigational develop an Australian national health ser- and other techniques. Moreover, there is no vice. Yet these conflicts were equally evident doubt that Russian naval officers regarded in Canada throughout this century, and that the exploits of Captain Cook with considera- country still developed a quite successful ble awe; as Barratt points out, Russian inter- national program. In fact, the history of Can- est in Pacific exploration was greatly ada is so similar to that of Australia that an stimulated by Cook's visit to Unalaska Island explicit comparison of developments in the and to Kamchatka in 1778-1779. It must two countries might have been very useful in also be remembered that many British naval understanding what was so peculiar about officers served on board Russian ships, Australia that it 'has been the only liberal especially after the conclusion of the Seven democracy to legislate to establish a popular Years' War when many British officers national health insurance system, only to see became unemployed. it promptly dismantled'. Contingent factors Golovnin was an officer who had spent may indeed be as important as Gillespie several years as a 'volunteer' in the British claims, but the argument needs to be sus- Navy, and he had even served with Colling- tained by a more directed examination of wood and Nelson. Golovnin was given com- developments in other countries, especially if mand of the Diana in 1807 and, after calling it must stand as a critique of a more general at Portsmouth to purchase instruments, he interpretation of the evolution of national sailed for the Pacific. He reached Vanuatu in health services. But Gillespie's work is still a July 1809 and, after touching at Aneityum richly detailed history of medical care in (the southernmost island of the group), he Australia, which will inevitably prove useful continued to Tana Island and anchored in to future work on the development of modern Uea Bay, which Cook had visited before him liberal societies. and named 'Port Resolution' after his ship. Golovnin's own account of his visit to Anei- Paolo Palladino tyum and Tana has been translated and Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine published in English for the first time in University of Manchester Barratt's book, and it makes fascinating reading. In it, Golovnin compares and con- Glynn Barratt, Melanesia and the Western trasts his own observations of the customs, Polynesian Fringe. Volume 3 of 'Russia and the lives, the language and the artefacts of the South Pacific, 1696-1840', Vancouver: the Tannese with those of Cook and of George University of British Columbia Press, 1990. Forster. This is followed by a detailed chapter xvii + 257 pp., illus., £34.15. on the 'Ethnographic Record: Book Review Section

Part two of Barratt's book is devoted to eucalypt-fire dependent relationship, second the Russians and Fiji, and particularly to the Aboriginal-fire interdependence, third the visit by the two ships captained by Faddei the European-fire ambivalence, and finally F. Bellingshausen and Mikhail P. Lazarev in the 'New Australian' or, as he terms it, 'Anti- August 1820. This visit, after sailing to the podean' strategic relationship with fire. Tuamotus, Tahiti and to Tonga, was part of Pyne provides a comprehensive overview a 'winter cruise' as an interlude to their of the fire ecology of the Australian biota, exploration of Antarctic waters. The Russians ranging from the conjectured fire regimes of called at Ono-i-Lau, one of the southern Gondwanaland through to the demonstrated islands of the Lau group, and made a number accounts of contemporary fuel loads, plant of important observations on the customs, reproductive adaptations to fire, burn toler- weapons, language and so on of the islanders. ances, fire-induced initiatives in plant One of those who came on board was called successions, and the existence of the 'fire Paul; he was a Tongan who had been carried flume' in the particularly vulnerable south on to Ono in a storm. This is interesting as and east of the continent. it emphasizes the close proximity of Tonga Aboriginal fire-stick hunting and farming and the southern Lau islands and explains is exhaustively chronicled, and the role of fire the mixed nature of Lau-Tongan culture. Bar- in the Dreaming and in maintaining grass- ratt has included English translations of the lands and open routeways through the wood- written observations about Ono by Simonov land and scrub is documented. The origins of (astronomer), Mikhailov (artist), and Ego- the British cultural baggage of fire manage- r'Kiselev (leading seaman) as well as by Bel- ment as imported into Australia is linked to lingshausen himself. Mikhailov was the earlier European land clearance processes official artist for the expedition and much of and is seen as the rationale behind the indis- his work is preserved in Leningrad criminate early and continuing (at least until (St Petersburg). One fine drawing of an Ono the 1950s in Gippsland) use of fire in land islander is reproduced on the dust cover of clearance for agriculture. the book. Many artefacts were collected at Changing attitudes to fire and its man- Ono and details of a number of these are agement are linked to the rise of forestry in given. Australia, with each colony - and later State Part three of the book is concerned with - producing its own version of management Russian visits to Nukufetau Atoll in Tuvalu along a spectrum from attempts at complete (formerly Ellice Islands) and to Anuta Island protection from fire to the advocacy of pre- in the eastern Santa Cruz group, both of emptive, prescribed burning - the Antipo- which are inhabited by Polynesians. Inciden- dean strategy in Pyne's view. The innovative tally, Anuta Island was first discovered (by work of R.H. Luke and A.G. McArthur is Europeans) by Captain Edward Edwards in emphasized in the latter context. In recent the Pandora. years, as Pyne shows, this strategy has been This is a scholarly book about Russian criticised by conservationists who see pre- voyages in the Pacific Ocean and about the scribed burning of national parks and islanders and their customs. It contains a reserves as an anathema. As he also shows, wealth of detailed information and will be of however, the optimal strategy is still great value to all those who study ethnogra- undecided. phy, linguistics, weapons and naval history. Throughout the book the message is loud and clear: the history of Australia's biota has G.M. Badger been dominated by fire, the current land- West Lakes scape is still highly vulnerable to fire (prob- South Australia ably more vulnerable than before if we acknowledge the risky spread of the suburbs Stephen J. Pyne, Burning Bush: A Fire into the bush), and yet Australian society has History of Australia. New York: Henry Holt not adequately accepted these facts. & Co., 1991. xix + 520 pp., illus., $47.50. Pyne brings a global perspective to his view of 'downunder', he has a clear command This is Stephen Pyne's fourth book on fire in of the local research findings and sources, he the environment, but the first outside his documents his message carefully but unob- native North America. It is a monumental trusively, and he writes with verve and com- investigation into the role of fire in the Aus- mitment. The parade of statistics passes as tralian environment and society, from the quickly as the fire front, while the eloquent earliest imaginings to the bicentennial circle prose burns longer in the mind: thus, 'Euca- of bonfires around the coast in 1988. Four lyptus . . . elevated nutrient scavenging and 'books' trace first the ecological context of the hoarding to an art form'; 'what the fall of Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 9, Number 2

Singapore was to Australian political history, education to its establishment in the public Black Friday [I9391 was to its environmental domain. These traditions included: the sys- history'. He is sometimes repetitive, and occa- tem of administration which grouped courses sionally he is wrong (brigalow is not Acacia into departments, the system of awards, a aneura, p.33, and the 1974-5 fire season in curriculum geared to the needs of full-time the Centre owed more to the one-in-a- workers, a responsibility for provision of tech- hundred-years rains of 1974 than to over- nical education in suburban and country grazing and the lack of Aboriginal burning, areas, and the practice of using external p.375); but these faults cannot seriously examiners. Most significantly, there came a detract from what is a tour de force. This tradition for defining the role of technical book offers insights into not only the natural education, only to find intentions thwarted ecology of fire in Australia, but also insights by circumstances outside its control. into the human ecology - how our society What follows is essentially a chronological has tried to come to terms with both the fire account, marked out roughly in decades. The weed and the fire continent. first 21 years saw the creation of a physical presence for the College and an institutional R.L. Heathcote form which put it at the centre of the whole School of Social Sciences state system of technical education. In 1913- Flinders University 1915, under the impetus of the apparent shortage of apprentices and their often lim- Norm Neill, Technically & Further: Sydney ited range of skills, a set of reforms was Technical College 1891-1991. Sydney: Hale instituted which would consolidate the cen- & Iremonger, 1991. 119 pp., illus., $19.95 p.b. trality of the College and its emphasis on 'supplementary trade instruction'. The inno- The origins of technical education in N.S.W. vative day-time courses introduced in 1902 can be traced to 1933, when the Sydney were discontinued, replaced by programs to Mechanics' School of Arts (SMSA) was complement the practical experience gained founded in the hope of improving morals as on the job and open only to those working in well as skills. Several decades would pass related industries, a condition which effec- before anything resembling organised and tively barred women from participation. The systematic vocational training would come to advisory committees established at this time this growing colony, and 1891 did not mark to give industry input on syllabus content any such event. remained a feature until 1986. This centenary publication therefore Developments of buildings, courses and opens with an explanation of why the 100th awards are then traced through war and anniversary of this year is worthy of celebra- peace, through a 'kind of golden era' of the tion. The answer concerns buildings: 1891 more prosperous 1920s, through depression was the year that technical education in and war again. The 1950s saw an expanding N.S.W. gained its first permanent home. This system in transition, as a new role was history, then, is the history of the Ultimo incubating. December 1959 brought the campus, where Sydney Technical College ingredient necessary to make a major shift fought a seemingly continuous battle against into a new era, when amendments to the the constraints of funding and space. Its Industrial Arbitration Act made it compul- centenary also marked a major institutional sory for all apprentices to have their techni- change when, on 1February 1991, TAFE was cal college training in daylight hours, leaving formally converted from a government facilities free to cater for different needs in department to a commission and given eight the evening. This opened the way for the years to become 50% self-funding. formation in 1975 of a separate Department The first chapter provides the prehistory: of Technical and Further Education, to prior- the formation of the SMSA, the lead-up to ity ranking of individual development needs its establishment of a Working Men's College over those of industry, and to a new role for in 1878, the government assumption of finan- the Sydney Technical College. cial responsibility for its operation in 1883 Those familiar with the earlier history, (via the Board of Technical Education), lead- Spanners, Easels, and Microchips, which cel- ing in 1889 to full government administrative ebrated 100 years of state responsibility for responsibility when the independent Board technical education in N.S.W., will find Norm was dissolved and its functions transferred Neill's effort far more substantial and satis- to the Technical Education Branch of the fying than that very brief overview. On the Department of Public Instruction. This chap- other hand, it has nothing of the richness of ter also identifies the traditions passed on the RMIT history produced by Stephen Mur- from the era of private provision of technical ray-Smith and Anthony Dare. Obviously pro- Book Review Section

duced to a much slimmer budget, it strong and influential Miss Roberts, who comprises 95 pages of text interspersed with steered the Department of Women's Handi- 40 photographs and some additional append- crafts in a direction which would equip ices. It is indeed a very matter-of-fact women for roles as housewives or wage account, clearly directed towards an audience earners. with some relationship to the College, for it As a straightforward account of how an 2would only be such an audience that would institution developed under the influence of find an interest in much of the detail about internal and external forces, this book would buildings, for example. Yet there is something be attractive and relevant to anyone with a here for others whose interests relate more past or present association with the College, to the place of the College in the educational including those many eminent scientists and structure of N.S.W., and the organisation of technologists who began their professional the book is such that it can be read selec- training within its walls. It would also be a tively by those more attuned to courses and useful addition to the library of anyone seek- themes than to buildings. Not that the build- ing the historical outline of a significant part ing theme is unimportant, for in that tale of the technical education system in N.S.W. there is a progressive unveiling of new or expanding skilled trades and a wider mes- Jan Todd sage about funding priorities. Also, the sev- Yowie Bay, N.S.W. eral photographs which reveal what was going on inside those buildings provide a T.A. Darragh, 'Frederick Proeschel, Colonial valuable record in themselves. Map Maker', Bulletin of the Bibliographical Major issues are indicated rather than Society of Australia and New Zealand (spe- debated, although themes do emerge, two of cial double issue), vol. 15, nos. 3 & 4, 1992. which are of particular contemporary rele- $15.00. vance. Throughout we find a recurring theme of the upgrading of courses and awards to This is a well-researched record of the activ- higher standards, only to have them split off ities of Proeschel, who is claimed to be Vic- to new institutions, leaving a gap in provision toria's only professional map publisher. This at the original 'technician' level. Related to statement must be taken to read the only this is the continuity of focus on vocational professional private-sector map publisher. training, sometimes provided in different Proeschel conducted his business, mostly ways but generally oriented by the priority in Melbourne, in the period 1853 to 1864, given to perceived industry needs, except for and produced many maps on a number of the TAFE period from 1974 to 1990. The themes. He started with maps showing the final chapter indicates the critical assess- whereabouts - and the ways to - the var- ment of that latter period by the new philos- ious goldfields which rapidly opened up in ophy and administration which followed the the early days of the colony of Victoria, after Liberalmational Party government to power it had separated from New South Wales in in N.S.W. in 1988. 1851. These were to be the forerunners of This book must be judged in terms of later road maps. what it sets out to do, which is to provide an He is also credited with initiating consec- account readily accessible to the general utive dwelling-house and business-premise reader. This is undoubtedly does. It is simply numbers, with appropriate identification, in and clearly written, and most chapters open the municipal street patterns. This practice with an analytical paragraph summarising was soon adopted by the various municipali- the major thrust of the following pages. Sec- ties in and around Melbourne. It no doubt tions are short, and subheadings provide provided the impetus for the later business accurate signposts to content. Overall, the directories produced over a long period by author has managed to achieve a level of Sands and McDougall for both Melbourne writing which conveys a sense of the broad and, successiively, most of the rural towns changes, philosophy and context of each and settlements of Victoria. period, dipping into detail only at selected Another very useful contribution to the moments. It is not burdened with lengthy community was the preparation of maps descriptions of administrative changes nor showing the electoral boundaries, needed as with character sketches of a succession of a consequence of the declaration of Victoria administrators, which we often find in such as a separate colony. Maps showing bounda- accounts. Indeed, there is little of the per- ries of mining districts, locations of wardens' sonal element, except for a section on the offices, and other information to assist in energetic but controversial Dr Murphy, mining administration were also published. pioneer of chemical engineering, and the With many of these maps, there came refer- Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 9, Number 2 ence books, which provided the first place- It is noted in the text that Proeschel made names gazetteer of the new colony; and yet frequent reference to county maps and other another innovation was the use of alpha- maps from the official survey departments, numeric grid references to locate places of which provided base material for his own interest. overlays. These official maps, mostly a record Unlike British cartographers of this of the cadastre and put together from a period who published Australian material - multitude of individual surveys, were loosely the Jas. Wylds (father and son), Arrowsmith related to piecemeal goedetic surveys and and Johnston, who mostly relied on official astronomical fxes on land and sea in the publications - Proeschel was the man-on- nineteenth century. The compilation of the the-spot, with the added advantage that his cadastral county, parish, hundred and town- topographic intelligence was gleaned from ship maps has been largely overlooked in the personal travel and other first-hand reports. story of mapping, as these impinge only Proeschel's activities extended into all the lightly on the community at large, which colonies, with the apparent exception of favours maps with more everyday themes. Western Australia, and his last and major There remains a need for the story of the work was an Atlas of Australasia. His carto- techniques used for early cadastral mapping graphic talents had a strong geographic to be told - to complement those of the early content. thematic cartographers. In many cases the The term 'mapmaker' can be rather con- results were not particularly accurate, but fusing to the uninitiated. There are really the story should not be permitted to go two categories of these practitioners: first, unrecorded. those who prepare the topographic base from Dr Darragh's contribution to the history observations on land and water, and following of early Australian cartography is timely and these, those who use this base material for well and carefully done, as evidenced by the the addition of overlays related to specific extensive notes and the listing of the maps subjects or themes. In the terminology of he has uncovered. today, these latter are thematic cartogra- John Lines phers, and Proeschel was one of these. Melbourne