Australian Heroes

Abstract

MR. EDEN has written a very interesting book. As might be surmised from the title, he has brought into prominence the adventures of the explorers of Australia rather than the results of their explorations. Australia is unlike almost any other country which has been the field of exploration; its sameness, the dreary tameness of the bulk of the continent, the comparative paucity and low state of the aborigines, deprive an explorer's narrative of many of the points of interest to be met with in the case of other countries—Africa, for example. South America, or even the Arctic regions. Still this little book shows that during the comparatively brief period that Australia has been a field for exploration, there have been plenty of deeds of daring and determination and self-sacrifice in the cause of scientific knowledge, to render any skillfully written narrative of Australian discovery interesting. Mr. Eden has told the story attractively, and the reader will not only be greatly interested, but will have a fair idea of what has been done to extend our knowledge of the “fifth continent” from its first discovery down to the trans-continental journeys of Warburton and Forrest—the latter, however, being referred to in a sentence or two.

Australian Heroes.

Charles H.

Eden

By. (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge).