Bk Revs HR05006.Fm

CSIRO PUBLISHING www.publish.csiro.au/journals/hras Historical Records of Australian Science, 2005, 16, 107–126 Reviews Compiled by Libby Robin Email: libby.robin@anu.edu.au Ann Moyal (ed.): The Web of Science: shore of Sydney Harbour. To enhance his The Scientific Correspondence of the income, he also took up journalism and for Rev. W. B. Clarke, Australia’s Pioneer many years regularly contributed articles, Geologist. Australian Scholarly editorials and letters to the Sydney Herald, Publishing: Melbourne, 2003. 2 vols. xxii + most of them dealing with scientific sub- 1340 pp., illus., ISBN 1 74097 042 (set); jects or with exploration (he was, for 1 74097 043 8 (vol. 1, 1836–1863); example, one of Ludwig Leichhardt’s prin- 1 74097 044 6 (vol. 2, 1864–1878), $175 cipal supporters). Most were published (set) ($200 for institutions). anonymously but his authorship was William Branwhite Clarke (1798–1878) widely known and helped him to quickly was one of Australia’s leading scientists of win a prominent place among Sydney’s the nineteenth century, the ‘father of Aus- small group of science enthusiasts. As that tralian geology’ as he came to be community expanded and viable scientific described. A graduate of Cambridge Uni- institutions were established, Clarke con- versity and an ordained minister in the tinued to play an influential role. In partic- Anglican Church, he had already estab- ular, during the last decade of his life he lished a position for himself as an enthusi- provided important leadership in the Royal astic ‘man of science’ in the classic British Society of New South Wales as Vice- style by the time he left England for New President (and thus effectively the chief South Wales in 1839, having published by office-bearer since the Governor was ex then some fifty papers on geological sub- officio President) for a period of nine years jects as well as a number of literary works. from the Society’s foundation in 1867. In He had also established connections with gratitude, the Society immortalized his the leading British geologists of the day, name by creating its Clarke Medal for both individually and through the Geologi- ‘meritorious contributions to the geology, cal Society in London, that he maintained mineralogy and natural history of Austral- by correspondence following his removal asia’ that is still awarded annually. to Sydney. Clarke had no private fortune, Clarke’s scientific standing both locally however — indeed, his move to Australia and internationally depended chiefly, how- was prompted by his lack of connections ever, not on his more ephemeral writings who could gain him preferment within the but on his geological work. From his earli- Church in England — and so he was est days in Australia, he spent much of his unable to devote himself solely to his leisure time hammering the rocks, seeking favourite scientific pursuits. Instead he an understanding of the colony’s compli- pursued his ministry, at first briefly as cated geological structures. The arrival in Headmaster of King’s School, Parramatta, Sydney Harbour of the United States then for several years as rector at nearby Exploring Expedition under Charles Campbelltown, and from 1846 until his Wilkes, a few months after Clarke himself retirement in 1871 as parson of the sprawl- had landed, gave this work an early fillip as ing parish of St Leonard’s on the north he went geologizing in the Illawarra region © Australian Academy of Science 200510.1071/HR05006 0727-3061/05/010107 108 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 16 Number 1 with the young James Dwight Dana who D. J. and S. G. M. Carr (eds), Plants and became a life-long correspondent. Later, Man in Australia, Sydney, 1981, sometimes accompanied by other visitors to pp. 136–176), the ‘fuss’ was much more the colony such as J. B. Jukes, naturalist on than a personal and local battle between HMS Fly during its survey in Australian Clarke and McCoy. Its ramifications were waters, he ranged both north and south of international — the main questions at issue Sydney, exploring the Hunter Valley and were eventually resolved not in Australia Lake Macquarie as well as the Blue Moun- but in India — and involved both funda- tains to the west. By the late 1840s Clarke mental questions about the interpretation had become a recognized authority on the of fossil plants and the abandoning of geology of New South Wales, and people long-held views about the universality of paid attention when he predicted that gold geological formations (which assumed that would be found on the western slopes of the the geological column worked out for Great Dividing Range. When payable quan- Europe would apply equally well else- tities of gold were duly discovered at where) and a recognition that different Bathurst and elsewhere in 1851, sparking parts of the world might have had quite the gold rushes that transformed Australia, different geological histories. Clarke died Clarke became embroiled in an acerbic pri- before the new understanding was fully ority dispute. Credit for the discovery was worked out and, though he was more also claimed by the prospector Edward Har- receptive to new ideas than McCoy, his graves, and by the British geologist Roder- thinking (to use Vallance’s words) ick Murchison whose claim was based on ‘remained bound by belief in the primacy the prediction he had made, in very general of European experience’. In the present terms, arising from his theories about the volumes, we can trace Clarke’s struggling, formation of mineral deposits. At a more limited as he was by this unrecognized practical level, Clarke was engaged by the presupposition, with the deep conceptual New South Wales Government to undertake problems involved, in the face of McCoy’s a gold survey of the colony that fully occu- intransigence and vituperativeness and his pied him for most of the following two own sometimes over-hasty judgments. The years, while he took leave from his parish conclusions he ultimately arrived at were duties, and that enabled him to range much embodied in his Geological Sketch Map of more widely than he had been able to do on New South Wales that was published by the his own resources. The reports he submitted government of the colony three years after that drew attention to localities that he he died, and that is reproduced as a fold- judged likely to yield payable mineral out coloured plate in the present work. deposits were highly regarded by the mining Clarke was a prolific letter-writer community and consolidated his reputation throughout his life, and he carefully as a colonial savant. retained his files of correspondence Prickly and assertive, Clarke did not shy (including copies prepared by his son of from controversy, whether over his claim some of his outgoing letters). After his to priority in relation to the discovery of death these were preserved by the son and gold, or in his long-running dispute with eventually transferred along with others of Melbourne’s Frederick McCoy and others his papers to the Mitchell Library in over the age of Australia’s coal deposits. As Sydney. In the present volumes, Ann Moyal Vallance argued almost a quarter of a publishes many of these letters for the first century ago in a magisterial paper: ‘The time, together with numerous letters Fuss about Coal: Troubled Relations written by Clarke that are held in other between Palaeobotany and Geology’ (in collections in the Mitchell Library or in Review Section 109 other repositories. In all, the edition encom- The present publication is restricted, in passes 895 letters, many of them of great the editor’s words, to Clarke’s ‘scientific interest. They are preceded by a 65-page correspondence and such of his collected biographical introduction by Moyal that correspondence as is relevant to scientific sets the letters in context. There is also a affairs’. Letters dealing with family comprehensive bibliography of Clarke’s matters or with his work as a clergyman scientific publications. Annotations to the are thus systematically excluded. This is to letters provide further information. The be regretted since it inevitably leads to an whole constitutes a tremendously rich artificially narrow view of Clarke the man resource that will be mined by historians of and of the social context of his science. Australian science, and by historians of Also omitted are Clarke’s many letters to geology more generally, for years to come. the newspapers, which may be accessed by The evocative title Moyal has chosen for means of an index prepared some years the edition highlights a major feature of the ago by Michael Organ, and, more surpris- collection. Scientists working in Australia ingly, Clarke’s correspondence as Secre- in the nineteenth century were few and far tary of the Australian Museum, between, and they depended on their corre- 1840–1845. Even more surprisingly, given spondence to keep in touch both with inter- Clarke’s work on the gold surveys and his national developments in their field and other contacts with government, no search with fellow workers in Australia and New has been made in the New South Wales Zealand. In Clarke’s case, we can see from Archives for letters from or to him that his letters how, especially in the 1860s and may be held there. Within the limits set, the 1870s, he was able to build up a network of edition will give readers both a clear correspondents among the younger genera- impression of Clarke’s life in science tion of geological workers — men such as during a period of almost forty years and a Richard Daintree, C.D. Aplin, G.F.

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