THE ONLY PUBLIC ACCOUNT OF AN IMPORTANT EXPEDITION, PRIVATELY PRINTED

34. NAPIER, Francis.

Notes of a Voyage from New South Wales…

Octavo, photographic frontispiece, eight lithograph plates and four folding lithograph maps and another map in the text; fine bright green original cloth, gilt. Glasgow, privately printed, n.d. but, 1876.

A presentation copy from the editor, James R. Napier, to A.G. MacDonald (dated 7 August 1876).

Francis Napier joined the South Australian Government expedition under Captain Cadell. They were searching for suitable sites for settlement on the north coast of the state (now the Northern Territory).

The expedition departed from Newcastle, New South Wales calling at Brisbane and travelling on to Cape York Peninsula. From Cape York it crossed the Gulf of Carpentaria to the Liverpool River, surveying that river and exploring the coast for about one hundred miles east and west of it. The expedition then returned to Burke Town on the Albert River, at the head of the Gulf of Carpentaria, and passing through Cadell Strait, and along the west coast of the Gulf, remaining some time at Maria Island… It discovered the entrance to the Roper River, from the Roper it returned to the Liverpool river, thence sailing westwards to Mount Norris Bay, Adam’s Bay, and Victoria River, in search of fuel, food and water.

The Notes outline the discoveries of the voyage including the entrance to the Roper River. These notes - which provide the only public account of the expedition - were compiled from Napier’s journal by his family and privately printed in Glasgow following his death in 1875.

A beautiful copy of a very rare book.

Ferguson 13058

Provenance: With the bookplate of Tristan Buesst

$4750 [3005341 at hordern.com] see description and illustrations at

THE PLATYPUS: BENNETT IN THE FIELD AND OWEN IN HIS LONDON LAB

35. [PLATYPUS] OWEN, Richard

and George BENNETT.

Two pieces on the platypus, by Owen and Bennett.

Quarto, with two lithograph plates illustrating the Owen article and one for the Bennett article; untrimmed, with large margins, in plain wrappers. London, Zoological Society, 1835.

Two important and early scientific articles on the platypus, published consecutively in the Transactions of the Zoological Society This first volume of the Society’s journal was published in 1835, containing papers communicated as early as 1833. The two articles here were communicated in 1834.

A fierce and protracted debate about the platypus was taking place in the 1820s and 1830s, with proponents including Henri Blainville, Sir Everard Home, Baron Cuvier, and the anatomist Johann Friedrich Meckel who had published the first monograph on the platypus (Leipzig, 1826). Richard Owen became involved in examining the structure and particularly the mammary glands of the monotreme in the early 1830s and when his friend George Bennett left England in 1832 he was determined to find a solution to the questions that Owen had raised. Bennett’s travels in Australia allowed him to make firsthand observations about the platypus’s habitat, feeding habits, locomotion, and nesting behaviour. He sent numerous natural history specimens back to Owen in London.

Owen’s work here “On the young of Ornithorhynchus paradoxus” sheds light on the developmental stages and physical characteristics of platypus offspring, while Bennett’s “Notes on the Natural History and Habits” focuses on the natural history and behaviour of the mammal. Bennett’s popular books Wanderings in New South Wales (1834) and Gatherings of a Naturalist in Australasia (1860) both contain observations and descriptions of the platypus, the latter title with a classic account of the mammal in which Bennett refers to ‘my friend Mr Owen’ and Owen’s identification of the mammary glands of the platypus.

$2100 [5000875 at hordern.com] see description and illustrations at

PRESENTATION: THE FIRST GOVERNMENT ASTRONOMER’S VERY RARE FIRST AUSTRALIAN STAR CATALOGUE

36. RUMKER, Christian Carl Ludwig (Charles Stargard).

Preliminary Catalogue of Fixed Stars…

Large quarto, 252 x 218 mm, pp 20, [ii], XXV; stab-sewn in the original blue-grey limp paper wrappers, with a presentation inscription on the front wrapper; preserved in a fitted quarter morocco bookform case. Hamburg, Printed for Perthes and Besser, 1832.

Very rare, a pioneering foundation work of Australian science and important in the history of world astronomy: the first Australian star catalogue, this copy inscribed by the author to Alexander Dallas Bache (1806–1867), scientist and educator, the great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin. This elusive book was probably printed in very small numbers for a specialist audience; just two copies are recorded in Australian libraries (NLA and SLNSW).

Christian Carl Ludwig Rümker (1788-1862), German astronomer, arrived in England in 1809, working for the East India Company and the merchant navy, before being press-ganged into the Royal Navy in 1813. Over the next few years he began making observations, including publishing the results of work he did at Malta. Recommended with an introduction - by Captain Peter Heywood, the involuntary participant in the Bounty mutiny - to the incoming Governor of New South Wales, Thomas Macdougall Brisbane, himself a keen astronomer, he arrived as part of the official party in 1821, beginning work at Brisbane’s Parramatta observatory, near Sydney, where he made several discoveries including “Encke’s Comet”. A bitter disagreement with Brisbane led him to resign his post, and to retreat to his new property at Picton, “Stargard”.

In 1826 he returned to Parramatta at the behest of Alexander Macleay, and was appointed government astronomer in December 1827, the first person to hold that title. He returned to London at the end of the decade, but another quarrel, this time with the president of the Royal Astronomical Society, Sir James South, led to Rümker finally being dismissed from British service and returning to Hamburg. Still working as an astronomer, at some point he became reconciled to Brisbane, as is shown by the present work’s dedication to him as “late Governor in Chief of Australia and Founder of the Observatory at Paramatta [sic]”.

Rümker’s later career was prolific, publishing scores of papers and being honoured with many fellowships, and continuing to work on his trail-blazing Parramatta observations. He died at Lisbon in 1862. “When awarding the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society to Rümker, the astronomer royal, Sir George Biddell Airy, said that Rümker’s dismissal was ‘the greatest misfortune that happened to Southern Astronomy’” (ADB).

Provenance: Inscribed by Rümker on the front wrapper “Professor A[lexander] D[allas] Bache with the author’s Comp[limen]ts”; at one time with Philadelphia Rare Books, USA.

$19,500 [5000809 at hordern.com] see description and illustrations at