BARKER, E.H. (editor) Geographical, Commercial, and Political Essays. London, Longman and Co., 1812
Octavo; uncut in the original blue papered boards with printed spine label; a remarkably fine copy.
Collection of essays on a wide range of topics, edited by the English classical scholar Edmund Henry Barker (1788-1839).
The collection of papers includes three articles of Australian interest. The first is "Remarks on reading in Phillips' Collection (June 1810) a French Voyage to New South Wales", which discusses the mysteries of the flooding of the Hawkesbury River and conjectures that it was fed by an as-yet unknown series of tributaries. This article highlights the complete lack of knowledge of the geography of the interior of Australia at that time.
"Fragments for a future history of Botany Bay, or New South Wales" is a miscellaneous collection of titbits of information on the current state of New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land and Norfolk Island and includes anecdotes of whaling, trade, fisheries, agriculture, Aboriginal culture and so on. These random jottings were evidently intended for publication at some point.
The final item of local interest is the "Curious Account of a convict-ship", by one Captain Bertram, pages 193-6, which gives a vivid and shocking account of daily life aboard convict transports.
Ferguson, 529.
$A4400
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