PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 561 
from the incursion of competitive foreign types, and with its Flora shaped and 
determined through long ages in the main by climatic influences. Naturally the 
controlling effect of animal life had been present throughout, as well as that of 
parasitic and fungal attack; but that potent artificial influence, the hand of man, 
was less effective here than in almost any other area. ‘The aborigines were not 
tillers of the soil: in their digging for roots and such-like actions they might 
rank with the herbivorous animals, so far as they affected the vegetation. 
Probably the most powerful influence they exercised was through fire. And so 
the conditions remained, the native Flora being practically untouched, till the 
visit of Captain Cook in 1770: for little account need be taken of the handful of 
specimens collected by Dampier in the seventeenth century. 
Captain Cook shipped with him in the Hndeavour a very remarkable man, 
viz., Joseph Banks, whom Dr. Maiden has described as ‘the Father of Australia.’ 
He not only acted as the scientific director of the expedition, but he was also its 
financier. Educated at Eton and Oxford, he found himself as a young man 
possessed-of an ample fortune. Though devoted to field sports, he did not, like 
so many others, spend his life upon them. Following the dictates of a taste early 
awakened in him, he turned his attention to travel for scientific ends. His 
opportunity came when Cook was fitting out the Yndeavour for his first voyage 
to the Southern Seas. Banks asked leave of the Admiralty to join the expedi- 
tion, which was granted, and he furnished all the scientific stores and a staff of 
nine persons at his own expense. 
The story of that great expedition of 1768 to 1771 is given in ‘ Cook’s Voyages,’ 
compiled by Dr. Hawkesworth, a book that may be found in every library. 
Though it is evident throughout that Banks took a leading part in the observa- 
tional work of the expedition, it has not been generally known how deeply 
indebted Hawkesworth was to Banks for the scientific content of his story. This 
became apparent only on the publication of Banks’ own Journal 125 years after 
the completion of the voyage. The circumstances of this have a local interest, so 
I may be excused for briefly relating them. 
Banks’ papers, including the MS. Journal, passed with his library and 
Herbarium on his death to his librarian, Robert Brown. On the death of the 
latter they remained in the British Museum. But after lying there for a long 
period they were claimed and removed by a member of Banks’ family, and were 
put up for auction. The Journal was sold for 77. 2s. 6d., and the last that has 
been heard of it is that it came into the possession of a gentleman in Sydney. 
Perhaps it may be lying within a short distance of the spot where we are 
now met. This valuable record, fit to rank with Darwin’s “Voyage of the 
Beagle,’ or Moseley’s account of the ‘ Voyage of the Challenger,’ might thus have 
been wholly lost to the public had it not been for the care of Dawson-Turner, 
who had the original transcribed by his daughters, helped by his grandson, 
Joseph Dalton Hooker. The boy was fascinated by it, and doubtless it helped to 
stimulate to like enterprises that botanist to whom Australia owes so much. The 
copy thus made remained in the British Museum. Finally, from it in 1896 Sir 
Joseph Hooker himself edited the Journal, in a slightly abridged form. It is now 
apparent how very large’ a share Banks actually took in the observation and 
recording, and how deeply indebted to him was the compiler of the account of 
the voyage published more than a century earlier, not only for facts, but even for 
lengthy excerpts. 
The piants collected in Australia by this expedition amounted to some 1,000 
species, and with Banks’ Herbarium they found, after his death, a home in the 
British Museum. Several minor collections were subsequently made in Australia, 
but the next expedition of prime importance was that of Flinders in 1801 to 
1805. What made it botanically notable was the presence of Robert Brown. 
Hooker speaks of this voyage as being, ‘as far as Botany is concerned, the most 
important in its results ever taken.’ The collections came from areas so widely 
apart as King George’s Sound, Southern Tasmania, and the Gulf of Carpentaria. 
These, together with Banks’ plants and other minor collections, formed the 
foundation for Brown’s ‘ Prodromus Flore Nove Hollandie,’ a work which was 
described in 1860 by Sir Joseph Hooker as being ‘though a fragment . . . the 
greatest botanical work that has ever appeared.’ It was published in 1810. I 
must pass over without detailed remark the notable pioneer work of Allan 
Cunningham, and of some others. The next outstanding fact in the history of 
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