Narrative of the Surveying Voyage of H.M.S. Fly, commanded by Captain F. P. Blackwood, R.N.
In Torres Strait, New Guinea, and other Islands of the Eastern Archipelago, during the Years 1842-1846: together with an Excursion into the Interior of the Eastern Part of Java...
London: T. & W. Boone, 1847 Stock Code: 146858
First edition, first issue, of this "very important voyage" (Hill), commissioned by the Admiralty to survey the Torres Strait, the hazardous Great Barrier Reef, and various regions in New Guinea. This copy in attractive condition.
The expedition was the first to be despatched to Australia on a purely surveying mission. Blackwood's directions were so "accurate that many appear on maps to the present day" (Howgego). Jukes, a student of geologist Adam Sedgwick at Cambridge, was naturalist to the expedition. In 1839, through Sedgwick's influence, he was appointed geological surveyor to the colony of Newfoundland. On his return to England he failed to secure the chair in geology at University College, London, but was selected to accompany the Fly to Australia: "over the next four years Jukes pursued his science in locations such as Madeira, Cape Colony, New Guinea, Australia, and the Great Barrier Reef. By the time the Fly dropped anchor at Spithead on 19 June 1846 he was a geologist of global experience he was to become perhaps the finest British field geologist of his day".
Description
2 volumes, octavo. Original dark blue combed cloth, titles in gilt to spines, elaborate panelling in blind to boards, yellow coated endpapers.
Illustrations
Publisher's advertisement tipped in after list of plates in both volumes. Uncoloured aquatint frontispiece to each, 14 other similar plates in all, together with 3 engraved plates, and numerous engraved illustrations to the text, including one full-page,
Condition
Spines uniformly sunned, slight bumps and rubbing to spine ends and tips, occasional foxing to plates, contents notably clean; a lovely copy in very good condition.
Bibliography
Ferguson 4549; Hill 901; Howgego II B39; Ingleton, pp. 61-8; Spence 468; Wantrup 92a.
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