THE GREAT ATLAS OF DISCOVERY

Across Australia Stuart completes

the journey across
the continent on
The FIRST BRITISH COLONISTS arrived in Australia in 1788, his third attempt,

10 years after Captain Cook's crew left. Most of them were July 1862. He
reaches the coast
g
convicts, sent there instead of to prison, and their guards, but and dips his tired ^
feet in the sea.
others soon followed. The first town arose on the site of modern Sydney.
For many years no one traveled even as far as the Blue Mountains,
only 40 miles away, but as the settlements grew, people went out in
search of new grazing land and explored the country further. Some
followed the great rivers of the southeast, the Murray and the
Darling, then crossed the Great Dividing Range and pushed
north; others set out to link the growing number of towns
in the south. Yet by the 1840s the heart of Australia was /^
still a mystery. Some people thought it contained a
great inland sea; others suspected it was nothing
but desert. The extreme heat and drought defeated Stuart abandons his first
attempt to cross the continent /~\
many who tried to reach the center. In 1859 when Aborigines set /ire to the \/'
bush (countryside)
the South Australian government offered ahead of him.
TENNANT
CREEK
person who could
a prize to the first
cross the continent from south to Stuart reaches the
center of Australia
north. By 1860 the race was on. oh his first attempt
to cross it. He
raises a flag on a
The Simpson Desert
intense, heat of the hill, later known
- -prevented'Charles Sturt 's expedition from as Mt. Stuart.
reacting the' center of Australia in 1845.

Stuart
1815-1866
Eyre and his
companions dig
John McDouall Stuart down nearly 10 ft
Stuart was bom in Scotland. As a to find water.
young man he emigrated to Australia
Eyre and his last
and worked as a surveyor, a farmer, and companion, Wylie,
then as a gold prospector. He got to know are half dead from
the country quite well. In 1845 he joined an starvation when they
shoot a kangaroo.
expedition led by Charles Sturt and discovered
Cooper's Creek. By the time he set out to cross cedun'AV
the continent in 1860, he was already an
T R A L i STREAia
experienced explorer.
on a diet of flour,
He knew how
mice, and thistles.
to survive
£ \
M S
A? BAY

o
**

KEY TO MAP
ALBANY* Exrc reaches Albany CHARLES STURT
r'jn July 1841. 1st expedition 1828-30 Q + + +o—+
2nd expedition 1844-45 Q-o—
Stuart crosses the continent.
EDWARD EYRE 1840-41 O ••••••
JOHN STUART 1861-62 ^oooooo
John Stuart set out to cross Australia from
Adelaide in March 1860. He took just one
BURKE & WILLS 1860-61 O -////////////

companion and reached the center of the

continent by April, but near Tennant Creek
hostile Aborigines barred his way, and he Edward Eyre
had to turn back. On Stuart's second Eyre, an Englishman, went to Australia
attempt, he almost reached Daly Waters, in 1832 at age 17. He worked as an
but thorny bushes blocked his path. His "overlander," driving herds of cattle
third attempt was successful. This time he
across country, and found the lake and
took 10 men with him, leaving Adelaide in
peninsula now named after him. He got
October 1861. He reached the coast near
present-day Darwin in July 1862 and raised
along well with the Abongines. In 1840
the flag in triumph (left). However, he was an Aborigine named Wylie joined him
unaware that farther east his rival in the on the tough expedition to look for a
race, Burke, had already beaten him to it. Eyre 1815-1901 route to link Adelaide and Albany.

: -

46