Exploration accounts are another strong area of the Hayes collection. Included are some rare and valuable accounts by explorers of early Australia, as well as accounts of expeditions around the globe. One area of substantial interest to Father Hayes was the discovery and exploration of Antarctica. Whole shelves of books on this topic in the Fryer collection come from the Hayes collection.
1. Antarctic Adventure
2. Home of the Blizard
3. South .. Shackleton
4. Shackleton's Last Voyage
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Four examples are shown here: Antarctic adventure: Scott's Northern party, describing part of Robert Scott's first Antarctic expedition from 1901 to 1904; The home of the blizzard, an account of the Australian Antarctic expedition led by geologist Douglas Mawson from 1911 to 1914; South: the story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917 which recounts Ernest Shackleton's failed attempt to cross Antarctica via the south pole; and Shackleton's last voyage: the story of the Quest.
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An inscription loosely inserted in the Hayes copy of volume 1 of Home of the Blizzard is of particular interest.
Pictured at left, it reads:
To Macpherson Robertson with warm appreciation of his splendid services to Australia and to the Empire and of his princely patronage to Scientific Enterprise and with warmest regards from Douglas Mawson 26.6.29
Macpherson Robertson was the founder of the famous Australian confectionary firm MacRobertson's, inventor of the Crunchie and Cherry Ripe bars and the Freddo Frog. A wealthy businessman, Robertson was also a philanthropist, providing the prize money for the London to Melbourne air race of 1934, and giving substantial donations to the joint British/Australian/New Zealand Antarctic expedition of 1929 to 1931. To acknowledge Robertson's generosity in funding his work, Mawson named MacRobertson Land in Antarctica in his honour. Judging from the date of the inscription, Mawson may have sent this copy of his earlier book to acknowledge Robertson's support.
Image from Freycinet's Voyage de découvertes aux Terres Australes - atlas
Two very valuable Australian exploration accounts also reside in the Fryer Library collection courtesy of Father Hayes.
The first is Frenchman Louis de Freycinet's Voyage de découvertes aux Terres Australes, and the atlas from this set contains the first published complete map of the Australian coastline.
Freycinet was the cartographer on Nicolas Baudin's expedition which set out from France in 1800 to explore the unmapped south and south-west coasts of Australia.
At the same time Freycinet was mapping the southern coast on board Baudin's expedition, England's Matthew Flinders was undertaking the first circumnavigation of Australia, also with the aim of mapping the south coast as part of the first complete survey of the Australian coast. Flinders had started at the western end of the southern coast, at Cape Leeuwin, while Baudin had started at the eastern end.
On 8 April 1802, the expeditions crossed paths at a place later named by Flinders 'Encounter Bay' (located on the south central coast of South Australia) this meeting marked the historic occasion when the entire coastline of continental Australia had been mapped. Even though England and France were at war, the two exchanged details of their surveys and returned to Sydney together to resupply their expeditions. A copy of Flinders' account and atlas are also in the Hayes collection.
In 1805 Freycinet returned to France and set to work preparing the maps and plans of the expedition for publication. Flinders had set out on the return voyage to England in 1803, and after experiencing a series of delays, he ended up on the ship Cumberland which was forced to put into Mauritius for repairs on the return voyage. With France and England at war, the French Governor on the island, General de Caen, detained Flinders as a prisoner of war. Nearly 7 years later, Flinders returned to England, and the delay meant that Freycinet's atlas would contain the first complete published map of Australia.
Shown is an example of the exquisite artworks accompanying the maps in Freycinet's atlas.
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