Australian Coastal Exploration and Maritime

Sailing with Flinders: The Journal of Seaman Samuel Smith – Peter Monteath (Hardback version one of 200 Copies)

First edition, readily available as a softcover but rare as a hardback due to the tight limitation. Numbered 154 of 200 copies thus.

Published by the super Corkwood Press, Adelaide in 2002. Professor Peter Monteath [descendant of Gidley King] of Adelaide University a well published historian. This book marries well with his “Encountering Terra Australis” of which Voyager usually has a copy.

Fine condition, xiv, 86 pages, maps in text numerous other illustrations, notes and bibliography.

Monteath edits the extant journal and provided his sizeable introduction. Apart from Flinders writings this is the only journal kept during the Voyage of the Investigator 1801-1803 during which Flinders circumnavigated Australia proving undisputedly its island form and filling in many parts of the then “Unknown Coast”. The writer of the journal [It was more like an exercise book] , Samuel Smith, was from Manchester and joined Flinders’ crew below decks as low a rank as could be got. Nevertheless, Flinders had a small tightly bound crew and Smith’s account makes for good and full reading.

An important historical account one of the tightly held hardbacks.

$80.00

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Triumph in the Tropics (Queensland) – Cilento and Lack – 1959

This substantial book was produced for the Centenary Celebrations of Queensland published 1959 effectively by the Historical Committee of the State Government. It is free from government style and influence and jam packed with facts in a naturally chronological order.

Thick octavo, 446 pages plus index. Illustrated throughout, including charts, coloured frontispiece of the Cooktown Orchid (quite beautiful but we find a slightly strange choice). Facsimile signatures on endpapers and a pretty good example of the decorative period dust jacket. Very clean.

Starts with very early explorers (the reference to first nation people comes later) .. Cook, Flinders, Oxley, Convict establishments, foray into the interior, self Government. Then the development of the “Modern Queensland” … pastoral, maritime and mining (more about Mount Morgan).

It is the depth of information that impresses us most about this book, whilst the content concerning aboriginal people would not meet today’s standards, it is hard to find a book anywhere that addresses progress in Queensland better than this account. Not surprising given the authors [note their humble reference to mere editors] Cilento and Lack.

A Triumph it is … Queensland!

$50.00

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The Discovery of the Torres Strait; Arctic Glacier Cap; Crete and the Gulf Stream – Journal of the Royal Geographical Society – August 1941.

The Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, November 1914, containing an important paper by “A.R.H.” regarding, from a western perspective, the discovery of the Torres Strait.

In 1928 Sotheby had sold a collection of Spanish manuscripts one being .. a “Relacion sumaria of the discovery begun by Pero Fernandez de Quiros and completed for him by Captain Don Deiego de Prado with the help of Captain Luis Baes de Torres … a document in Prado’s handwriting .. and a document that turned out to change the then held view.

Also, we have an excellent nicely illustrated paper on the Arctic Glaciers .. the West Ice of North East Land … including the Franklin Glacier.

A travel account relating to Crete takes us back to warmer weather.

Usual blue wrappers period adverts etc, illustrated with maps and images from original photographs.

The Prado manuscript changed it all re the discovery of the Torres Strait

$70.00

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Richard Siddins of Port Jackson [Australian Maritime History] – Lyndon Rose.

Published by Roebuck in 1984 a nice production, larger format, 152 pages, Illustrated, end paper maps. A very good copy.

Richard Siddins was a merchant sea captain who sailed out of Port Jackson from 1804 to 1822. He operated sealing expeditions to the Antarctic Oceans; gathered sandalwood; carried cargo to India and China. Within all this he experienced more adventure seeking gold from a wrecked privateer; taking care at a cannibal feast; chased by Tongan war canoes; wrecked off Macquarie Island … it was all in a day’s work for Captain Siddins.

Hinted above amongst all this was an important early voyage to the South Shetland Islands.

Early Australian Maritime History.

$35.00

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Australian Maritime Archaeology – A Collection of High Level Reference Material – 14 Items.

A super collection of scholarly items pertaining to Australian Shipwreck research. Mainly from the 1980’s when a number of important discoveries were made and pursued none less important than …

The cache comprises … Introductory Training Program – Handbook Institute for Maritime Archaeology [IMI] (60 pages); the Test Excavation of the William Salthouse Wreck Site (35 pages); Bulletins of IMI, , Vol 8 No 1 1984 (42 pages), Vol 8 No 2 1984 (46 pages), Vol 9 Nos 1&2 (48 pages), Vol 10 No 1 1986 (83 pages), Vol 10 No 2 1986 (53 pages), Vol 11 No 1 1987 (60 pages)Vol 11 No 2 1987 (51 pages), Vol 12 No 1 1988 (55 pages), Vol 12 No 2 (45 pages), Vol 13 No 1 1989 (26 pages), Vol 13 No 2 1989 (54 pages), Volume 14 No 1 1990 (55 pages) … so an unbroken seven year run.

As you would expect the contents of each heavily illustrated with technical diagrams of wreck site assessment and record, diagrams explaining technique and apparatus sometimes unique or improvised, diagrams explaining diving procedures for covering complex site areas, images from photographs of wrecks and the treasures they throw up.

Contents are simply super .. we have elements of the Sirius, Batavia, Aarhus, Loch Ard etc. The discovery of the Pandorra on the Queensland Reef is a major project reported on by Paul Clerk and almost namesake Bill Jeffery. Whilst mainly referencing Australian waters there is plenty from abroad and deeper and broader history … Chinese Stone Anchors, Titanic artifacts, Copper sheathing, Asiatic shipbuilding techniques takes up a whole conference (O to have been there).

Super collection of quality Australian shipwreck and archaeological references.

$240.00

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Australian Shipwrecks Update 1622-1990 (Volume 5 and last) – Jack Loney

Published in 1991 a soft cover copy of Jack Loney’s final book on Australian shipwrecks … filling in many gaps and providing new information nor previously published. So completing what remains as the great reference guide to shipwrecks and we have some!

Perfect bound, 169 pages, self published. Illustrated cover and numerous illustrations mainly from period photographs in the text. Because the subject matter is spread over the whole period of the broader “Shipwrecks” works this edition has a slightly different approach with chapters such as … The Long Lost wrecks; then the updated list; then extension appendices on … threatened losses; scuttled vessels; the Riddle of the Submarine etc.

If its shipwrecks its Loney

$35.00

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Sailing with Flinders: The Journal of Seaman Samuel Smith – Peter Monteath (Hardback version one of 200 Copies)

Triumph in the Tropics (Queensland) – Cilento and Lack – 1959

The Discovery of the Torres Strait; Arctic Glacier Cap; Crete and the Gulf Stream – Journal of the Royal Geographical Society – August 1941.

Richard Siddins of Port Jackson [Australian Maritime History] – Lyndon Rose.

Australian Maritime Archaeology – A Collection of High Level Reference Material – 14 Items.

Australian Shipwrecks Update 1622-1990 (Volume 5 and last) – Jack Loney

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