SPENCER, Baldwin

Report on the Work of the Horn Scientific Expedition to Central Australia.

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Dulau and Co., & Melville, Mullen and Slade London & Melbourne, 1896. Four volumes in three, quarto; a fine set in contemporary maroon morocco, gilt. A superb presentation set of the official account of the Horn Expedition, handsomely bound in a special binding of full maroon morocco, with each volume inscribed by W.A. Horn to "P.E.H." (his wife Penelope Elizabeth Horn). This set was later in the superb library of H. Bradley Martin (1906-1988), one of America's most important book collectors. Each volume contains the distinctive Bradley Martin bookplate.

William Austin Horn (1841-1922), the South Australian philanthropist, pastoralist and politician, in 1894 sponsored a scientific expedition to examine the MacDonnell Ranges. This became known as the Horn Scientific Expedition to Central Australia and was commanded by Charles Winnecke. Unusually for these times the party included among its six scientists an anthropologist, an ethnologist, a botanist and a geologist. The expedition set out from the Finke River, followed it to the Palmer then proceeded west along the James Range to the George Gill Range and beyond. They followed the path of Giles, Gosse and Stuart using the early explorers' water sources as bases, and in the pursuit of natural history and scientific discovery explored much of the unknown regions of the MacDonnell Ranges. Horn travelled with the expedition as far as Idracowra on the Finke River.

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In 1896 Sir Baldwin Spencer edited the official account of the expedition for publication in this handsome format. The book gives an outstanding scientific record of the Horn Expedition; it is also the most comprehensive record of a scientific expedition undertaken anywhere in Australia in the nineteenth century.

The four volumes comprise the narrative, zoology, geology and botany, and anthropology. The reports were written by the notable Australian scientists of the day, including Spencer himself, Professor Ralph Tate, J.A. Watts, J.H. Maiden, E.C. Stirling, Alfred J. North, Walter Frogatt, and Edgar Waite.

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• продавец: Hordern House (AUSTRALIA)