Mining and Geology

Gold-Dust and Ashes (A Romantic Story of the New Guinea Goldfields) – Ion Idriess – 1945

Published by Angus and Robertson, Sydney 1945.

Small octavo, 258 pages, frontispiece and with end paper maps. Dust jacket chipped to spine top and front top edge. Otherwise a very good copy … unusually clean inside for an edition often browned … this one bright and crisp.

Ian Idriess’s great book about the early New Guinea Goldfields. One of the must have books in the PNG list – great photographic images.

Gold- Dust it is!

$60.00

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Rocks and Minerals of Australia – Oliver Chambers

Published by Methuen in Australia a first edition 1976. Very good condition. 246 pages with lots of images, diagrams and maps. And with the striking Crocoite on the front board – see our examples on this website.

Or favourite “Observer Book” part of an Australian contribution to the series. A serious miniature work on the subject and the source of much of Voyager’s knowledge.

The detailed maps at the end and connectivity to the narrative open up the enormous subject to the newcomer

An expert in a day!

$30.00

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The Quest of the Black Opals – Alexander McDonald – 1908

A Tale of Adventure in the Heart of Australia … by Alexander McDonald and illustrated by William Rainey R.I.

Published by Blackie & Sons, London, Glasgow and Bombay in 1908.

Octavo 352 pages with nice pictorial covers. Some age to page edges otherwise a very good copy.

The opening sentence sets the scene nicely … “In that desolate tract of country beyond the borders of Queensland through which the mystic Cooper flows, lies a wealth of fire-flashing opal awaiting only the advent of him who can take it away”.

Six full page illustrations including the frontispiece, plus a full page map near the front and a small map reference Burke and Wills.

Adventure stirred up by Opals in the Heart of Oz

$60.00

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Jenolan Caves (The Underground Wonderland) New South Wales, Australia – H. Phillips – c1910

Superior period view book of the glorious Jenolan Caves. Photographed, printed and published by H Phillips (1873-1844) of Katoomba in the Blue Mountains.

This is a scarce edition with superior illustrated cover and more images than his more standard work on the Jenolan Caves. No date but circa 1910. Not in Trove.

Landscape presentation … soft covers with exotic gilt title and illustration to front. 30cm by 24cm with title page, 2 page introduction plus 49 pages of plates, 3 of which are double folding with five excellent panoramas. Captioned images include …The Grand arch; Carlotta Arch; Devil’s Coach House and Bridge from Lucas Entrance; Grand Stalactites Imperial Cave; The Giant Shawl; Cleopatra’s Needle; Mons Meg; The Proscenium; Brookes Column; Crystal Palace; The Mystery; The Willows Nettle cave; Gem of the South etc etc

Beautiful record of the Jenolan Caves by Harry Phillips

$180.00

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Wings of Gold – How the Aeroplane Developed New Guinea – James Sinclair

No greater expert in his subject, James Sinclair’s formidable book about the exploration driven development of aviation in New Guinea. Covering the period from 1922 to 1942 during which New Guinea was the busiest place for aircraft movements anywhere in the world.

Published by Robert Brown in 1983 in fine condition. Quarto, 326 pages a substantial book. Images to end papers and illustrated throughout with numerous period photographs, maps, facsimile documents etc. The aviation images are to die for.

Expatriates will know the Leahy family and Jack Hides and pleased to see Frank Hurley standing on the Curtiss Seagull flying boat and a special image of Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan just before they left Lae on their fateful attempt to cross the Pacific.

Wings of Gold – Best book on the period vies with Sinclair’s Three Volume “Balus” as the best aviation book ever.

$140.00

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The Bridgewater Treatises: Including Rev William Buckland on Geology and Mineralogy, Charles Bell on the Hand, Whewell on Astronomy etc – Finely Bound – (1833-1845)

Eight works in 11 volumes, published in London by William Pickering, mixed editions various dates 1833 – 1845.

Bound in full contemporary polished calf, boards gilt ruled, the spines with gilt lined raised bands, altered direct and dated at the foot of spine. Very good copies with an occasional mark externally and a faint damp stain to the uncoloured geology plates, outer corner. The famous massive folding coloured plate is in fine condition. Each volume carries the bookplate of Maximillian Dudley Digges Dalison.

Francis Henry Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgwater, a gentleman naturalist and scientist, commissioned the Bridgewater Treatises to be written on his death bed. He died in February 1829. Eight thousand pounds was given to the President of the Royal Society for this purpose. In turn the President appointed leading authorities in key fields to write works with reference to Natural Theology.

The Voyager Treatise comprise Thomas Chalmers – The Adaption of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Condition of Man; John Kidd – The Adaption of External Nature to the Physical Condition of Man; William Whewell – Astronomy and General Physics; Sir Charles Bell – The Hand, Its Mechanism and Vital Endowments as Evincing Design; Peter Mark Roget – Animals and Vegetable Physiology; William Buckland’s – Geology and Mineralogy; William Kirby – On the History, Habits and Instincts of Animals and William Prout – Chemistry, Meteorology and the Function of Digestion.

The ninth and final Bridgewater Treatise – Charles Babbage – A Fragment is not included in the run.

Many of the volumes stand alone as important works … Sir Charles Bell on the Hand, Astronomy by Whewell etc. It is the Rev Buckland that produced a truly remarkable work in the field of Geology. The second of two volumes contains all the 87 plates required all finely engraved and the large folding hand coloured plate is something very special.

Rev William Buckland (1784-1856) was an exceptional individual – a Fellow of the Royal Society, President of the Royal Geological Society. His interest in geology and palaeontology led him to write the first full account of a fossil dinosaur which he named Megalosarurus. He discovered the Kirkdale cave and concluded that it had been a prehistoric hyena den – for which he was awarded the Copley Medal by the Royal Society. This work was written just prior to his awakening that certain geological structures and fossil remains were a result of glaciation and not the effect of floodwaters from the great deluge. Buckland was a friend of a young Charles Darwin – there must have been some very interesting conversations.

Important Georgian/ Early Victorian intellectual works by leading academics of the day

$890.00

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Gold-Dust and Ashes (A Romantic Story of the New Guinea Goldfields) – Ion Idriess – 1945

Rocks and Minerals of Australia – Oliver Chambers

The Quest of the Black Opals – Alexander McDonald – 1908

Jenolan Caves (The Underground Wonderland) New South Wales, Australia – H. Phillips – c1910

Wings of Gold – How the Aeroplane Developed New Guinea – James Sinclair

The Bridgewater Treatises: Including Rev William Buckland on Geology and Mineralogy, Charles Bell on the Hand, Whewell on Astronomy etc – Finely Bound – (1833-1845)

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