z

a i. wee

"\e

JOURNAL and
PROCEEDINGS

of

The Royal Society of
New South Wales

Volume 142 Parts 3 and 4
Numbers 433-434 2009

THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES

OFFICE BEARERS FOR 2009-2010

Patrons Her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce AC
Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia.
Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC CVO Governor of
New South Wales.
President Mr J.R. Hardie, BSc Syd, FGS, MACE
Vice Presidents Em. Prof. H. Hora
Ms R. Stutchbury
Mr C.M. Wilmot

Hon. Secretary (Gen.) Mr B.R. Welch

Hon. Secretary (Ed.) Prof. J. Kelly, BSc Syd, PhD Reading, DSc NSW, FAIP, FInstP
Hon. Treasurer Ms M. Haire BSc, Dip Ed.

Hon. Librarian vacant

Councillors Mr A.J. Buttenshaw

Mr J. Franklin
Ms Julie Haeusler

Dr M. Lake, PhD Syd

A/Prof. W.A. Sewell, MB, BS, BSc Syd, PhD Melb FRCPA
Southern Highlands Rep. Mr C.M. Wilmot

EDITORIAL BOARD

Prof. P.A. Williams, BA (Hons), PhD Macq.

Prof. J. Kelly, BSc Syd, PhD Reading, DSc NSW, FAIP, FInstP
Dr M. Lake, PhD Syd

Mr J. Franklin

The Society originated in the year 1821 as the Philosophical Society of Australasia. Its main function is
the promotion of Science by: publishing results of scientific investigations in its Journal and Proceedings;
conducting monthly meetings; awarding prizes and medals; and by liason with other scientific societies.
Special meetings are held for: the Pollock Memorial Lecture in Physics and Mathematics, the Liversidge
Research Lecture in Chemistry, the Clarke Memorial Lecture in Geology, Zoology and Botany, and the
Poggendorf Lecture in Agricultural Science.

Membership is open to any person whose application is acceptable to the Society. Subscriptions for the
Journal are also accepted. The Society welcomes, from members and non-members, manuscripts of research
and review articles in all branches of science, art, literature and philosophy for publication in the Journal
and Proceedings.

Acknowledgements The Royal Society of New South Wales gratefully thanks the NSW State
Government for their financial suppport of this publication.

Copyright The Royal Society of New South Wales does not require authors to transfer their copyright.
Authors are free to re-use their paper in any of their future printed work and can post a copy of the
published paper on their own web site. Enquiries relating to copyright or reproduction of an article should
be directed to the author.

ISSN 0035-9173 Ent SONIA iy
- JUN 1U 2010

LIBRARIES

Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Vol. 142, p. 1-14, 2009

ISSN 0035-9173/09/02001-14 $4.00/1

Seeing Stars in the City — A History of Early
Astronomy in Sydney

PETER J. TYLER

Abstract: Mankind has always been fascinated by the apparent movement of the objects
in the sky. Initially the stars and planets had a spiritual significance, but later their value as
markers of time and aids to navigation came to be recognised. ‘The invention of the telescope
four centuries ago enabled people to expand their understanding of these celestial phenomena.
Astronomy was the doyen of the sciences by the end of the 18°" century, the so-called Age of
Reason, when Australia was first settled by Europeans. Thus it is not surprising that it was
practised in the new colony from the earliest days. This paper traces an almost unbroken line
of notable astronomers in Sydney until the early 20° century.

Keywords: Astronomy, history, meteorology, observatory, Royal Society, Sydney, telescope.

When Galileo Galilei turned his telescope
towards the sky in Florence four hundred years
ago, and wrote about ‘The Starry Messenger’,
he launched an intellectual revolution that we
celebrated in 2009 as the International Year
of Astronomy.! That occasion makes it an
appropriate time to reflect on the achievements
of some notable astronomers who continued in
the same tradition while working in Sydney
during the period before Federation.

Let us begin with a little story:

‘Beyond the horizon, where no one has ever
been, there is a beautiful land with grassy valleys
and tree-covered hills. The inhabitants of that
land are Moons — big, shining globular Moons.
They have no arms or legs, but they can move
quickly across the grass by rolling over and over.

It is a pleasant life in that green, watered land,
but sometimes the Moons grow restless, and when
night comes they have the urge to explore farther
afield and stroll across the sky.

Only one Moon goes on such a journey at a time.
It is a pity that they do not go in company, but
they do not know that outside the valley there lives
a giant. He catches the wandering Moon, and with
his flint knife he cuts a slice from it each night,
until after many nights there is nothing left but a
number of shining slivers. The giant cuts them up
very finely and throws them all over the sky.

They are timid little creatures, these cut-up
Moons which have become Stars. During the day,
when a Sun goes striding across the sky, they hide.
Who knows but that, if they showed themselves

then, another giant Sun might not creep out and

catch them unawares.’
Adapted from Reed 1993

This is one of the many legends and fables
recounted by Aboriginal Australians to explain
the existence of the sun, moon and stars. Al-
though the stories vary from locality to locality,
indigenous people generally believe that every
aspect of the world we know today was created
by spirits who once lived in the sky. This spirit
dreaming is repeated in the dreamings of the
people who now inhabit the earth (Bursill 2007).

Unfortunately most of the stories told by the
Eora people who were the original inhabitants
of the Sydney region were lost before anthro-
pologists became active in the mid-nineteenth
century (Turbet 2001). Nevertheless, the story
demonstrates the truism that since earliest
times humans have been fascinated by the sky,
particularly the night sky, and the apparent
movement of the objects which they can see.

The settlers who arrived in 1788 were not
simply disinterested observers like Cook and
Banks who sailed past in 1770; Val Attenbrow
from the Australian Museum has pointed out
that ‘The colonists impacted on the local way
of life from the moment they began clearing
the land’? (Attenbrow 2002). Although there
are colourful accounts of the life and customs
of the local Aborigines written by officers of
the First Fleet, we cannot assume that these

' Sidereus Nuncius was published in 1610. In 1616 the Catholic Church told Galileo to stop
advocating heliocentrism, and banned an earlier book by Copernicus on a similar theme.

2 TYLER

reports provide an accurate description of pre-
1788 conditions, which may already have been
coloured by the new circumstances as well as the
authors’ own pre-conceptions. Furthermore, the
local population of the Sydney region (no more
than 3,000 on the best estimate) was devastated
by a virulent epidemic the following year, pos-
sibly smallpox, leaving few older people with a
sound knowledge of their own traditions.

Serious research into local customs began
during the nineteenth century, particularly
amongst groups that had not had significant
contact with Europeans. W.E. Stanbridge stud-
ied the original inhabitants of the Victorian
mallee around 1857, and noted that the appear-
ance of the major star clusters above the horizon
were associated with seasonal events — in effect,
a primitive calendar (Stanbridge 1857).

Several anthropologists reported that the
brightest stars and constellations, such as the
Milky Way and the Southern Cross were given
a meaning, although this differed between re-
gions. Writing in the Royal Society of New
South Wales Journal & Proceedings in 1881,
Rev. Peter MacPherson noted similarities be-
tween Greek and Aboriginal mythology, for
instance in associating the Pleiades with a group
of young maidens (MacPherson 1881). Still
later, some rock carvings at Manly were inter-
preted as indicating that the Eora people had
some concept of the relative motion of the Earth
to the Sun, and that they understood that the
Earth revolved. If this was the case, these were
concepts that Copernicus (1473-1543), Kepler
(1571-1630), Galileo (1564-1642) and Newton
(1643-1727) had difficulty in convincing the
‘civilised’ Old World four centuries ago, at
a time when other creation myths prevailed
(Ramsay 1932).

Scientific values of rational enquiry became
more widely accepted in the eighteenth century,
during the period called the Enlightenment
or the Age of Reason. At this time France
and Britain were the international superpowers,
engaged in a rivalry for scientific and territorial
discovery. Much of the Pacific Ocean was
uncharted, yet a problem faced by all navi-
gators when so distant from their homelands

was the difficulty of accurately determining
their position. Provided that the skies were
reasonably clear, it was relatively easy to fix
latitude (North-South) by measuring the angle
between the sun and the horizon. Longitude
(East-West position) was a more difficult propo-
sition for a ship at sea. The only way of
measuring a vessel’s speed was to cast a knotted
rope overboard and count the number of knots
that passed through the bosun’s hands in a
fixed period, usually determined by an hour-
glass. That calculation did not take account
of tides or currents, so provided only a rough
estimate of distance travelled. Clocks of that
era were driven by a pendulum mechanism that
could not cope with the motion of a sailing
ship and so could not measure elapsed time.
Astronomical observations were not very helpful
in the southern hemisphere because there were
no accurate tables of star positions. It is no
wonder that many East Indiamen on their way
to Java accidentally bumped into New Holland
because the Captain miscalculated his position.

So acute was the problem that a Board
of Longitude was established in England in
1714, offering a prize of up to £20,000 to the
person who devised an accurate and reliable
means of finding longitude at sea. After much
experimentation, that honour finally went to
John Harrison who developed chronometers
that were not affected by motion, and could
maintain accurate time for an extended period.
Knowing that in one hour, the sun’s apparent
position has altered by 15 degrees of longitude,
it was possible to calculate the distance from a
fixed reference point — the Greenwich meridian
became the benchmark. Nevertheless, Harrison
had great difficulty in collecting the prize, and
in fact he never received the full sum promised
(Wikipedia 2010).

In 1768 the Royal Society in London peti-
tioned King George III to mount an expedition
to observe the Transit of Venus the following
year, a phenomenon that would be seen at its
best in the South Seas. Lieutenant James Cook
was selected by the Admiralty to command HM
Bark Endeavour while Charles Green, a former
assistant to the Astronomer Royal, Rev. Dr

* Also see National Maritime Museum website, http: //www.nmm.ac.uk

STARS IN THE CITY 3

Nevil Maskelyne, was appointed by the Royal
Society as principal observer. Wealthy young
botanist Joseph Banks paid for himself and a
retinue of other scientists to secure a place on
the voyage.

The Transit of Venus is that rare phe-
nomenon when the planet Venus passes between
the Sun and Earth, and therefore appears as a
black spot moving across the Sun. It occurs
in an unusual pattern; in a pair about eight
years apart, and then not again for over a
century. The last transit visible from Sydney
was in June 2004, the next will be on 6 June
2012, at 8.30am; thereafter the next will not
be until 2117. The significance of the event
for astronomers was that if carried out at a
number of widely separated locations (77 in this
case) it provided a means of calculating the
distance between the Earth and the Sun. That
distance is now known as the Astronomical
Unit — approximately 150 million km. From
this information it was hoped that astronomers

could deduce the size of the whole solar system
(Lomb 2004).

James Cook’s skill as a navigator and sea-
man was displayed when the party arrived
at Tahiti several months before the predicted
Transit of Venus. This allowed plenty of time
to establish a semi-permanent settlement that
became known as Fort Venus, with proper
facilities for astronomer Charles Green to set
up his instruments for observing the Transit.

The observations were reasonably successful,
although there was some discrepancy in the
times noted by the several observers, which
affected the accuracy of the calculations. ‘Tak-
ing advantage of the location, Green continued
making astronomical observations for another
two months. Some of Cook’s notes on his own
observations are held at Mitchell Library in
Sydney. Although Charles Green died on the
voyage home, full reports of Green’s and Cook’s
observations were published by the Royal Soci-
ety in London, the sponsors of the expedition.

PERE LST IO SEOLPLCOEEDDELEESE bo SIPS SPS EPLER REESE IE NIE E LEIP KLAR ELE LLL

Observatory tent as used by Cook’s party at Fort Venus, Tahiti. A similar tent was used by the
La Pérouse expedition in Botany Bay. The wooden framework was covered with canvas, leaving
an aperture for the telescope. (Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, B-091-008)

While Charles Green was observing various
celestial bodies, the 26 years-old Joseph Banks
used his time at Tahiti to gather botanical
specimens, and to make ethnological studies of
other bodies, remarking on the ‘infinite smooth-
ness’ of the women’s skin, and commenting that
‘these people are free from all smells of mortality
and surely ...it must be preferred to the odorif-
erous perfume of toes and armpits so frequent in
Europe’ (Engledow 2008). Because there was
no need for their nautical skills on shore, most
of Cook’s crew devoted their time to similar
pursuits by giving a different interpretation to
the ‘transit of Venus’.

After completing the observations in Tahiti,
Cook set off on the secret part of his mission — to
discover if a great south land existed to balance
the northern hemisphere land masses, as many
geographers inferred. The British government
hoped that this was correct, imagining untold
wealth like the Spanish had discovered in the
Americas. Cook soon concluded there was no
Terra Australia Incognita, but as part of his
voyage of global circumnavigation he charted
the entire coast of New Zealand, and then the
eastern coast of New Holland, for which he
claimed possession by the British Crown as New
South Wales. We know from Cook’s journal
that Charles Green began taking celestial mea-
surements on 30 April 1770, the day after they
arrived in Botany Bay. Thus Green became
the first professional astronomer to practice on
Australian territory.

After returning to England, Joseph Banks
went on to become President of the Royal
Society, the dominant figure in English science,
serving in that office for an unequalled 42 years
until his death in 1820. When asked to suggest a
site for the transportation of England’s surplus
criminals, Banks proposed Botany Bay, where
he had collected many new species of plant and
animals years earlier. That advice was followed
and as we know, the First Fleet arrived there at
the beginning of 1788.

However, after spending just a week in
Botany Bay, Captain Arthur Phillip decided
to take his eleven ships to the more congenial
environment of Sydney Cove. By remarkable
coincidence, the French Comte Jean-Francois

TYLER

de Galaup La Pérouse sailed into Botany Bay
as Phillip was leaving, and set up an encamp-
ment on the northern shore, at a location now
known as Frenchman’s Beach. Following bad
experiences at other places he had visited in the
Pacific, La Pérouse built a solid palisade around
the camp site to protect men and materials from
pilfering or attack — rather similar to Fort Venus
erected by Cook on Tahiti 19 years earlier.

Amongst the French party was Joseph
Lepaute Dagelet (1751-1788), a capable as-
tronomer, who immediately set up a tent to
house his instruments and form an improvised
observatory. Aged 37 when he arrived in Botany
Bay, Dagelet was the youngest Associate Mem-
ber of the French Academy of Sciences. At
first reluctant to join the expedition, it was
only following entreaties from the Minister that
he agreed to take part. A sensitive soul, he
did not enjoy the rough company of sailors,
who he wrote to a friend ‘sing, swear, smoke,
drink and speak of girls all in the same half an
hour’, although he got on well with La Pérouse.
Officers of both the French and English navies
visited each other from their respective camps in
Sydney Cove and Botany Bay, although Arthur
Phillip and La Pérouse never met personally
(Barko 2007). The French Revolution began
with the fall of the Bastille the following year.

While Dagelet was setting up his observa-
tory at Frenchman’s Beach, about 15 kilometres
to the north Second Lieutenant William Dawes
(1762-1836) of the British Marines was unpack-
ing the telescopes and astronomical instruments
supplied by the Board of Longitude in order
to observe the expected appearance of a comet
later that year (it did not appear). He named
his chosen site Point Maskelyne, after his men-
tor and patron Dr Maskelyne, the Astronomer
Royal. This is the location which we now
know as Dawes Point. We have some idea of
what his observatory looked like from a written
description and a sketch he made in a letter
home; a convincing re-creation of this building
was built in the now-defunct Old Sydney ‘Town
theme park near Gosford.

A week after their arrival, Dawes accompa-
nied Lieutenant Philip Gidley King on a visit to
the French fleet. The two astronomers met and

STARS IN THE CITY 5

exchanged information about their work. Later,
Dagelet wanted to visit Dawes by trekking
overland, but La Pérouse would not permit this
because of unknown dangers. However, one of
the French officers did visit Dawes at his obser-
vatory site, and reported back to Dagelet, who
wrote a long letter to his English counterpart
which is now in the Mitchell Library.

Dagelet and La Pérouse never returned to
France because their expedition was wrecked
in the Solomon Islands and their fate is un-
known. Underwater archaeological exploration
at the site has yielded a number of scientific
instruments of the period, probably including
those used by Dagelet. All the records of
his observations sank with the ships, with the
exception of that letter to William Dawes writ-
ten on 3 March 1788 in which he gives the
geographical co-ordinates of the Botany Bay
observatory and some other technical advice to
his less-experienced British counterpart.

William Dawes used this information
when he established accurate geographical co-
ordinates for Sydney, but he also had other
responsibilities in the new colony, which needed
his training as an engineer and surveyor to
lay out streets and fortifications. He hoped to
remain in NSW if a suitable position could be
found for him, but after a couple of clashes
with Governor Phillip, he was obliged to return
to England with the marine contingent in
1791, taking his borrowed instruments with
him. With no other trained astronomer in
the colony, and no instruments, the wooden
observatory building soon fell into disrepair
(Mander-Jones 1966). Dawes has been treated
kindly by historians and novelists because of his
apparent benevolence towards the Aborigines®
but recent research has painted an entirely
different picture of the man in his subsequent
career as governor of Sierra Leone, where he
allegedly engaged in slave-trading amongst
other crimes (Pybus 2009).

Towards the end of Lachlan Macquarie’s
term as Governor in 1821, a small group of
educated men in the colony formed the Philo-
sophical Society of Australasia, which became
the forerunner of the present Royal Society

of New South Wales as well as the indirect
antecedent of many other Australian scientific
organisations and learned societies. While the
early years had been devoted to eking out a
tenuous subsistence in a strange environment,
by this time increased prosperity gave a lit-
tle scope for more leisurely pursuits. Nev-
ertheless, Charles Darwin remarked somewhat
tartly when he visited Sydney in 1836 that
the main topic of conversation was sheep and
wool. Darwin was not an astronomer, but
HMS Beagle did carry 22 chronometers to verify
their accuracy over a long period under arduous
conditions. Although the Board of Longitude
had been disbanded in 1828, there were still
some lingering doubts about the reliability of
the new technology.

At the end of 1821 a new Governor, Major-
General Sir Thomas Brisbane (1773-1860) ar-
rived in the colony together with his family,
a retinue of servants, a personal physician, a
French chef, and two scientists. Because the
Macquaries were still living in the original Gov-
ernment House in Bridge Street, Sir Thomas
and his entourage settled into the other (and
larger) official residence at Parramatta. Lady
Brisbane was sickly, and both she and_ her
husband preferred the climate and unpolluted
atmosphere of Parramatta, so the Governor
remained there throughout his tenure, only
visiting the city establishment one day a week
to transact his official responsibilities. This
caused considerable resentment amongst the
senior administrative, legal and military officers
who had to travel to Parramatta to transact
their business.

Like Macquarie, Brisbane was a military
man and a Scotsman. Living on _half-pay
since the defeat of Napoleon and only recently
married, he sought the appointment to New
South Wales in order to maintain his lifestyle
(Liston 1996). He had been elected a Fellow
of the Royal Society in London because of his
interest in astronomy, and he was excited by
the possibility of exploring the skies of the
southern hemisphere. He brought with him

* See for instance G. Karskens, The Colony, 2009; I. Clendinnen, Dancing With Strangers, 2005;
T. Flannery, The Birth of Sydney, 1999, and for a novel based on Dawes, see Kate Grenville,

The Lieutenant, 2008.

6 TYLER

the latest instruments and two astronomical
assistants, Carl Riimker and James Dunlop.
Under the Governor’s supervision an elaborate
observatory building was erected in the grounds
of Government House at his own expense, and
a rigorous program of celestial observations
commenced. During the daytime, Brisbane
occupied himself with that favourite pastime
of the landed gentry to which he belonged —
hunting — leading to the accusation that he
spent his nights looking at stars and his days
chasing parrots (Liston 1985).

During 2009 the Parramatta Park Trust has
been conducting an archaeological dig at the site
of Brisbane’s observatory, and has unearthed
some new evidence that still awaits interpreta-
tion.

Plans for Sir Thomas Brisbane’s observatory
at Government House, Parramatta. Governor
Brisbane, a notable astronomer, was Presi-
dent of the Philosophical Society of Australasia
1821-2. He later became President of the Royal
Society of Edinburgh. Only a few remnants of
the Parramatta observatory that he built now
exist. (Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW,
GPO1-23235)

After four years in Sydney, Sir Thomas
Brisbane was recalled to Britain and returned
to his estates in Scotland, where he built an
observatory to continue his astronomical obser-
vations. As a result of this work he was elected
President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh,
with numerous publications to his credit.

Christian Carl Ludwig Riimker (1788-1862)
was born and educated in Germany, but at the
age of 21 went to England and served a period
in the Royal Navy, where he became interested
in astronomy before returning to Hamburg as a
teacher of navigation. Governor Brisbane paid
him a salary of £200 a year to become his
private astronomer. Soon after the Parramatta
observatory opened it came to international
attention when the trio of astronomers observed
the return of Encke’s comet, which became only
the second comet to have its return successfully
predicted in advance, the first being Halley’s
Comet (Pickett & Lomb 2000, p. 25).

The grateful governor granted Riimker 1,000
acres of land at Picton as a reward. ‘Twelve
months later he deserted his job at the obser-
vatory and moved to his new rural property.
Brisbane was furious, and tried to revoke the
land grant. Relations between the two men
collapsed (Bergman 1960).

After Brisbane returned to England, the
government acquired his observatory. Riimker
then resumed astronomical work at Parramatta
in May 1826, and discovered another comet.
The new governor, Ralph Darling appointed
him to the position of Government Astronomer,
the first person to hold this title. However,
when he went to London in 1829 to purchase
new instruments, Sir Thomas Brisbane used
his influence to have Riimker dismissed from
government service. For many years afterwards
Brisbane and Riimker maintained a vitriolic
correspondence. Riimker returned again to his
native Hamburg and became director of the
observatory there, while continuing to work on
his Australian star catalogue. He received many
international awards for his achievements, but
is little recognised in this country (Bergman
1967).

STARS IN THE CITY

James Dunlop (1793-1848) was born in
Scotland of humble parents. With little formal
education he showed great aptitude for mechan-
ical craftsmanship, making his first telescope at
the age of 17. Sir Thomas Brisbane selected
him as one of his two astronomical assistants
because of his facility with instruments, whereas
Rimker was primarily a mathematician. Dun-
lop made about 40,000 observations at Par-
ramatta in the four years after Riimker left
suddenly, although the quality is rather poor
because of inaccurate instruments. In 1831,
James Dunlop was appointed superintendent
of the observatory. After 1837, however, his
activity declined, perhaps due to poor health.
Much of his work in this period was never
published, and he resigned in 1847, dying the
following year (Wood 2009).

In contrast to the volatile Carl Riimker,
James Dunlop had an outgoing, friendly person-
ality, with a wide range of interests outside as-
tronomy. Dunlop Memorial Park at Kincumber,
near Gosford, where he lived commemorates his
work. A memorial tablet in the local Church
of England describes him as ‘Astronomer Royal
at the Observatory Parramatta’, which over-
states the position he held as superintendent.
Although both Riimker and Dunlop (and Bris-
bane) were awarded the Gold Medal of the
Royal Astronomical Society in London, Dunlop
was never accepted into the educated ranks of
class-conscious Sydney and was not invited to
join the Philosophical Society.

Rev. William Scott (1825-1917) became the
first director of Sydney Observatory, although
his biographer incorrectly called him the first
Government Astronomer. While a mathemat-
ics lecturer at Cambridge University, he was
selected by then Astronomer Royal, Professor
George Airy, for the position in Sydney. He
arrived in 1856 — the year that the colony
achieved responsible self-government, and the
year after the railway to Parramatta opened —
and was able to help with planning the observa-
tory building which opened in 1858. However,
when he returned to Sydney from travels around
the colony to set up meteorological stations,
he found that the central tower had been built
taller than he expected, in order that the time
ball could be clearly visible to ships in all parts

of the harbour. This meant that the critical
eastern horizon could no longer be seen from
the telescope dome. That decision revealed the
government’s true priorities; to provide accu-
rate timekeeping for navigation. The northern
dome with unimpeded view was only built after
Scott’s departure. Initially he had to work with
the old instruments from Parramatta, although
he persuaded the government to order a large
telescope from Germany. He was criticised
in the press when amateur astronomer John
Tebbutt at Windsor discovered a new comet
before Scott observed it, but after all that
was not his mandate. Somewhat discouraged,
William Scott resigned in 1862 to return to his
earlier vocation of teaching (Doyle 2008).

Rev. William Scott, Government Astronomer
and first Director of the Sydney Observatory,
1856-1862. He helped with planning the new
building, but his scientific work was hampered
because initially he had to use the outdated
instruments from Governor Brisbane’s observa-
tory at Parramatta. (Mitchell Library, State
Library of NSW, GPO1-13544)

8 TYLER

George Robarts Smalley (1822-1870) suc-
ceeded Scott. The son of a Church of England
clergyman, he became an astronomical assistant
at the Royal Observatory in Cape Town after
completing his degree at Cambridge. Later he
became a mathematics professor, before the As-
tronomer Royal recommended him for appoint-
ment as the government astronomer in Sydney.
His interests were in meteorology and trigono-
metric surveying rather than celestial astron-
omy, and these coincided with the government’s
pragmatic instincts. He organised automatic
recording of harbour tides at Fort Denison,
and expanded the network of volunteer weather

observers throughout the colony4(Wood 1976).

George Smalley was unusual for a mid-
nineteenth century scholar in wishing to see
a greater female involvement in the sciences,
albeit expressed with a paternalistic Victorian
overtone: ‘a knowledge of science in ladies is not
inconsistent with their natural refinement, or
incompatible with their usefulness in domestic
and social life’ (Smalley 1868).

Sadly, Smalley died suddenly two years after
this address to the Royal Society of NSW in
1868, so was unable to put his ideas into effect.
It was to be another seventy years before women
were allowed to join the Royal Society.

_

Sydney Observatory in 1874. Opened in 1858, the building and its surrounds look almost identical
today, although it is now an adjunct of the Powerhouse Museum. The tower housing the time-ball
obscured astronomical observations from the adjacent dome. (Mitchell Library, State Library of

NSW, a089304)

4 H.C. Russell later pointed out that the tide readings were inaccurate, because they were measured
with a hempen rope whose length varied with atmospheric conditions.

STARS IN THE CITY 9

Henry Chamberlain Russell (1836-1907) has
been called one of the most eminent men of
Australian science in the nineteenth century.
Born at Maitland, after graduating from Sydney
University he joined the staff of the Obser-
vatory as a ‘computer’, and became the first
Australian-born Government Astronomer when
George Smalley died in 1870, holding the posi-
tion for the next thirty-four years. During this
time he discovered 500 new double stars, and
published over 130 papers. For the 1874 Transit
of Venus, he set up temporary observatories in
several locations in NSW in order to minimise
the possibility of clouds obscuring the event,
which he described as ‘very remarkable and
beautiful’.

Henry Chamberlain Russell, NSW Government
Astronomer 1870-1907. He was a skilled pho-
tographer and inventor. Four times President
of the Royal Society of New South Wales. The
first graduate of University of Sydney to be
elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, Lon-
don. (Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW,
SPF /P1/Russell)

In addition to pure astronomy, Russell was
keenly interested in photography and meteorol-
ogy, inventing new recording instruments and
re-establishing the weather stations discontin-
ued by his predecessor, so that he could issue a
daily weather map to the newspapers. By 1898,
he had 1600 observers throughout the colony
of New South Wales sending data by telegraph.
He was the first graduate of the University of
Sydney to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal
Society of London, and he was president of the
Royal Society of NSW four times. He later
became Vice-Chancellor of the University.

Henry Russell believed that the scientist
must be ‘patient in investigation, accurate in
measurement, cautious in accepting results’ A
vigorous, uncompromising man, he made his
share of enemies. In 1877 there was an assas-
sination attempt when a bomb was delivered
to him at the Observatory; two of his staff were
charged, but acquitted because the evidence was
circumstantial. Then in 1889 he was physically
attacked by one of his workmen (Walsh 1976).
He retired in 1905, dying in 1907 while still
living at the Observatory.

Henry Alfred Lenehan (1843-1908) had a va-
riety of jobs before being appointed as assistant
to H.C. Russell in 1870, cataloguing accurate
star positions for the next 37 years. Lene-
han was appointed Government Astronomer in
1907, and made a number of significant changes
in the work of the Sydney Observatory. He
began taking measurements of the force of
gravity, and used the branch observatory at Red
Hill near Pennant Hills to investigate magnetic
fields. This was no longer possible in the city
because of interference caused by the electric
trams. Like his predecessors and most of his
successors, Lenehan was an active member of
the Royal Society of New South Wales (Wood
1986).

When Henry Lenehan died, there was a hia-
tus of four years before William Ernest Cooke
(1863-1947) was appointed Government As-
tronomer in 1912, holding this position jointly
with that of Professor of Astronomy at the
University of Sydney. Observations continued
under his leadership, but in 1926 he took
early retirement when the Government decided

10 TYLER

to curtail the activities of the Observatory
(Hutchison 1981).

While Lenehan was working as astronomical
assistant to Henry Russell, Henry Ambrose
Hunt (1866-1946) became the meteorological
assistant at Sydney Observatory in 1890, re-
sponsible for preparing the daily weather map,
and working with Russell investigating the
movement of anti-cyclones. After Federation,
he went to Melbourne in 1906 as head of the new
Commonwealth Meteorological Bureau (Walsh
1983).

Then, as now, some people were sceptical
about the validity of weather forecasting. Pietro
Baracchi, the government astronomer in Victo-
ria in the 1890s, remarked that what he termed
‘popular meteorology’ was ‘of little practical
value except as an amusement, and of doubtful
credit to science. (Perdix 1979). To him it was
on a plane with astrological horoscopes.

William Shakespeare was making an iden-
tical point around the same time Galileo was
making his observations: ‘Why didst thou
promise such a beauteous day, And make me
travel forth without my cloak, To let base clouds
o’ertake me in my way ...’ (Shakespeare?)
Shakespeare may have been speaking metaphor-
ically, but the point is still valid.

Professional scientists were rare in the
nineteenth-century, therefore it is not surprising
to find that serious astronomical investigations
were being made by men who were not paid
Colonial officials. One of the most significant
of all Australian astronomers was John Tebbutt
(1834-1916) at Windsor, whose observatory still
exists. Tebbutt was offered the position of Gov-
ernment Astronomer when William Scott re-
signed, but he didn’t relish the ‘blighting influ-
ence’ of the civil service and preferred to main-
tain his independence as a researcher. Educated
locally — he never left Australia — his family were
relatively prosperous farmers. He had bought
his first instrument, a marine sextant, at the
age of nine, and continued to acquire mechanical
and optical objects throughout his life.

> Shakespeare, W. Sonnet 34.

Tebbutt built an international reputation for
his accurate observations of comets and minor
planets, and his publications were in much
demand. He was regarded as Australia’s lead-
ing astronomer in the late nineteenth century
(Orchiston 1989). Tebbutt discovered the great
comet of 1861, which is one of the finest comets
on record, and discovered another major comet
in 1881. He observed the return of Encke’s
comet on seven occasions (Wood 1976).

Closer to the city there is the observatory in
the grounds of St. Ignatius’ College, Riverview.
This began in 1908 under the direction of Father
Edward Francis Pigot (1858-1929). Born in
Ireland, he initially studied medicine and set
up practice as a doctor in Dublin. In 1885
he enrolled for the priesthood with the Jesuit
order, first coming to Riverview in 1889. For the
next 15 years he travelled extensively, including
a period working at the famous observatory
in Shanghai, before returning to Sydney in
1907. He immediately set about planning an
observatory of international standard at the
College. This included facilities for official
daily meteorological observations, a function
which continues today. Pigot was particularly
interested in movements of the earth’s crust,
and established a fully-equipped seismological
station. The only other equivalent station in
the southern hemisphere was operated by the
Swedish Academy of Sciences at Samoa, despite
the fact that the south-west Pacific region is
an area prone to earthquakes. Later he be-
gan studying variable stars and solar radiation,
which he believed could be used in long-range
weather forecasting.

Amongst his many other attributes, Father
Pigot was an accomplished pianist, whose play-
ing was once commended by Franz Liszt. As
the distinguished geologist Sir Edgeworth David
remarked, ‘Surely there never was any scientific
man so well-beloved as he (Drake 1988).

Some men who are remembered today for
other achievements also made notable contri-
butions to astronomical science, a discipline in
which they were more than mere hobbyists.

STARS IN THE CITY i

Admiral Phillip Parker King (1791-1856)
was born on Norfolk Island, the son of the
third Governor of NSW, Phillip Gidley King,
who had been the companion of William Dawes
when they visited the La Pérouse expedition in
Botany Bay. Phillip Parker King was a notable
hydrographer as well as a keen astronomer, who
built a private observatory on his property at
Dunheved. King was influential in persuading
the government to establish an observatory
in Sydney, and he ensured that the instru-
ments from Brisbane’s Parramatta observatory
remained in the colony as a nucleus for the new

institution (Pickett & Lomb 2000, p. 22).

Phillip Parker King (1793-1856), foundation
member of the Philosophical Society of Aus-
tralasia, hydrographer, pastoralist and ama-
teur astronomer. He was influential in having
Sydney Observatory built. King was the son
of the third Governor of NSW, and became
the first Australian-born Admiral in the Royal
Navy. (Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW,
GPO1-17497)

Conrad Martens (1801-1878) is known pri-
marily as one of the most distinguished early
colonial artists. He was part of the research
complement of HMS Beagle, during which he
formed a lasting friendship with Charles Dar-
win. Martens left the expedition in Valparaiso,
and made his own way to Sydney where he
remained for the rest of his life (Dundas 1967).
When he became a neighbour of Rev. W.B.
Clarke, rector of St. Thomas’s church in North

Sydney, his latent interest in astronomy was
fostered. Clarke has been called the ‘father
of Australian geology’, but his interests ex-
tended to all the natural sciences, and he was
a leading figure in the Royal Society of New
South Wales. Conrad Martens acquired an
astronomical telescope from London so that he
and Clarke could observe the solar eclipse of
1856. His observational records demonstrate
that this interest was a serious occupation (Ellis
1994). He, too, was an elected member of the
Royal Society.

Philip Adams (1828-1901) became
Surveyor-General, as well as a successful wine-
grower. He was responsible for the dome on
the top of the Lands Department building
in Bridge Street that was originally designed
for astronomical observations by budding
surveyors. Adams’ reputation as an astronomer
was confirmed by his selection as one of the
official observers of the transit of Venus in 1874
at Woodford, and in 1882 at Lord Howe Island
(McIntyre 1969).

Another member of the surveying staff,
Joseph Brooks (1847-1918), carried out most
of the original trigonometrical survey of NSW,
working from a baseline at Lake George that
had been started by Smalley (Nangle 1930). In
order to ensure that titles to land ownership
were accurately defined, it was essential that
the location and length of this baseline were
known precisely; this was achieved through
astronomical observations. After his retirement
Brooks furthered his lifelong interest in astron-
omy, taking part in a number of expeditions to
observe total solar eclipses in the South Pacific
region.

Lawrence Hargrave (1850-1915) is remem-
bered as one of the pioneers of aviation. His
experiments with box kites at Stanwell Park
proved that heavier-than-air flight is feasible for
humans. Hargrave made many experimental
engines to power his kites, but could not develop
a design that provided the required combination
of power and light weight. Hargrave published
his theoretical work on aerofoil wing design
in the Journal and Proceedings of the Royal
Society of New South Wales. He refused to
patent any of his inventions, believing that

17 TYLER

scientific knowledge should be for the benefit of
all humankind. After receiving a comfortable
inheritance, Lawrence Hargrave was able to
pursue his scientific interests in many directions
at once. Astronomy was one of his obsessions
— perhaps linked to his desire to conquer the
skies — and he had been engaged as an assistant
astronomer at the observatory for five years
from 1878 (Bhathal & Sansom 1988).

A man with a very different professional
career was Walter Gale (1865-1945), who rose
to become manager at the head office of the
State Government Savings Bank. At the age
of 19 he built his first 18cm mirror telescope.
Particularly interested in the surface of planets,
he was the first person to note some of the
topographical features of Mars, which he was
convinced supported some form of life. He died
in 1945 at the age of 80 while making his nightly
telescopic sweep of the sky (Wood 1981).

James Nangle (1868-1941) a multi-talented
architect who became Superintendent of Tech-
nical Education was a passionate astronomer.
He designed an observatory for his Marrickville
home, and built the telescopes he used there.
Several of his papers and books on astronomy
were published, gaining a reputation that re-
sulted in him joining the official expeditions to
view eclipses of the sun in 1910 and 1923. He
helped re-design the Sydney Observatory and
moved his family there after he was appointed
honorary government astronomer in 1926 (Cobb
1986).

Sydney-born Thomas Roseby (1844-1918)
had a brilliant career in Arts and Law at
Sydney University, later becoming an ordained
minister of the Congregational church, and a
leader of the temperance movement both in
New South Wales and New Zealand, where he
spent 16 years. In 1888 he became minister at
the Marrickville Congregational Church — later
known as the Roseby Memorial Church — where
he set up an observatory in order to pursue his
interests in astronomy. He contributed papers
to respected scientific journals, and arranged
educational evenings for students at his home
observatory, which he later moved to Mosman.

It is notable that a number of these men were
clergymen, and from different Christian de-

nominations — Maskelyne, Scott, Clarke, Pigot,
Roseby, have been mentioned. By the nine-
teenth century most Christians accepted the
proposition that the Earth revolved around the
Sun, although they might still consider that hu-
mans were a unique, unchanging species in the
universe. ‘These beliefs were further challenged
150 years ago when Charles Darwin published
his Origin of Species. Unlike many churchmen |
of his period, Thomas Roseby at Marrickville
saw no inherent conflict between religion and
science; he held that Darwin’s evolutionary
theory was not inconsistent with Christian be-
lief, but ‘simply a question of Divine method’
(Phillips 1976).

Of course, one reason for the involvement
of so many clergymen in studying the natural
sciences — including astronomy — during the
nineteenth century, is that they tended to be
better and more broadly educated than many
of their contemporaries, few of whom had pro-
gressed beyond an elementary schooling.

Understandably, much of the effort of the
early astronomers in Sydney was devoted to
the practical needs of a new colony situated
at the opposite end of the Empire. Consistent
timekeeping, accurate fixing of positions both
for navigation and land subdivision, under-
standing the weather patterns for agricultural
purposes or tidal variations for fishermen, were
all essential tasks. But this did not preclude
plenty of pure scientific discovery as well. A
comprehensive star atlas was begun as part
of an international project, double stars were
identified and measured, magnetic and geodetic
surveys were carried out, and notable pioneer-
ing work in seismology all contributed to our
understanding of natural phenomena.

As we moved deeper into the twentieth cen-
tury, astrophysics rather than positional astron-
omy became the focus of most research. After
the Second World War, Sydney-based scientific
institutions became leaders in the field of radio
astronomy, with many significant achievements
to their credit. A number of notable physicists
and astronomers contributed to these advances,
but their careers lie outside the scope of this

paper.

STARS IN THE CITY 13

In any case, by mid-century optical astron-
omy had become impractical in Sydney, mainly
due to increasing atmospheric pollution, and
the brightly illuminated buildings that rendered
the night sky all but invisible. Professional
astronomers moved to remote rural locations
such as Siding Springs near Coonabarabran,
leaving enthusiastic amateur astronomical so-
cieties as the only regular users of traditional
telescopes in the metropolitan area. Sydney
Observatory closed for scientific observations in
1982, and has now become an adjunct of the
Powerhouse Museum, with informative displays
both of historical and contemporary astronomy,
so that the achievements of the pioneers have
not faded from view like the objects they once
observed from that site.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author would like to thank the Alexander
Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand and
the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, for
the use of the photographs in this paper.

REFERENCES

Attenbrow, V., Sydney’s Aboriginal Past, Syd-
ney, UNSW Press, 2002, p. 2

Barko, I. ‘Lepaute Dagelet at Botany Bay’,
Explorations, No. 43, December 2007, pp. 21—
AO.

Bergman, C. ‘C.C.L. Rumker, Australia’s first
government astronomer’,

Journal of the Royal Australian Historical
Society, Vol. 46, Pt. 5, November 1960, pp.
247-289.

Bergman, G.F.J. Australian Dictionary of Bi-
ography, Vol. 2, 1967, p. 403.

Bhathal, J. & Sansom, I. ‘Sydney Observatory:
Scientific Institution, Museum and National
Heritage’, Journal & Proceedings of the Royal
Society of NSW, Vol. 121, Pt. 3, 1988, p. 71.

Bursill, L. Dharawal, Sydney, 2007, p. 8.

Cobb, J. Australian Dictionary of Biography,
Vol. 10, 1986, pp. 661-663.

Doyle, G.E. Reverend William Scott M.A.,
Sydney, 2008.

Drake, L.A. Australian Dictionary of Biography,
Vol. 11, 1988, pp. 230, 231.

Dundas, D. Australian Dictionary of Biography,
Volk2, 1967, ppe 212; 213.

Ellis, E. Conrad Martens, Life & Art, Sydney,
1994, p. 33.

Engledow, 8S. ‘Thrown together’, Portrait 31,
Canberra, National Portrait Gallery, Autumn
2008.

Hutchison, D.E. Australian Dictionary of Biog-
raphy, Vol. 8, 1981, pp. 102, 103.

Liston, C. ‘Sir Thomas Brisbane in New South
Wales’, Journal of the Royal Australian His-
torical Society, Vol. 71, Pt. 2, October 1985,
pp. 91-106.

Liston, C. ‘A convict and garrison town 1821—
1840’, in T. Kass, C. Liston & J. McClymont,
Parramatta. A Past Revealed, Parramatta,
1996.

Lomb, N. Transit of Venus, Sydney, Powerhouse
Publishing, 2004, p. 3.

MacPherson, P. Journal and Proceedings of the
Royal Society of NSW, Vol. XV, 1881, pp.
71-80.

Mander-Jones, P. Australian Dictionary of Bi-
ography, Vol. 1, 1966 pp. 297, 298.

McIntyre, J. Australian Dictionary of Biogra-
phy, Vol. 3, 1969, p. 16.

Nangle, J. The Sydney Observatory. Its History
and Work, Sydney Technical College, 1930, p.
10.

Orchiston, W. “The role of the amateur in early
Australian astronomy’, Search, Vol. 20, No.
1, 1989, pp. 16-23.

Perdix, J.L. Australian Dictionary of Biography,
Vol. 7, 1979, pp. 166, 167.

Pickett, C. & Lomb, N. Observer & Observed,
Sydney, Powerhouse Publishing, 2000.

Phillips, W. Australian Dictionary of Biogra-
phy, Vol. 6, 1976, pp. 58, 59.

Pybus, C. ‘Not fit for your protection or an
honest man’s company’, History Australia,
Vol. 6, No. 1, April 2009, pp. 12.1—12.7.

Ramsay Smith, W. Myths and Legends of
the Australian Aborigines, New York, Dover,
2003 (originally published 1932), p. 93.

Reed, A.W. Aboriginal Myths, Legends & Fa-
bles, Sydney, Reed New Holland, 1993, p.
AOO.

14 TYLER

Smalley, G.R. Royal Society of NSW Transac-
tions, 1868.

Stanbridge, W.E. Transactions of the Philo-
sophical Institute of Victoria, Vol. 2, 1857, pp.
137-140.

Turbet, P. The Aborigines of the Sydney Dis-
trict before 1788, Sydney, Kangaroo Press,
2001, p. 97.

Walsh, G.P. Australian Dictionary of Biogra-
phy, Vol. 6, 1976, pp. 74, 75.

Walsh, G.P. Australian Dictionary of Biogra-
phy, Vol.9, 1983, p.405.

Wikipedia, ‘Board of Longitude’. http://en.
wikipedia. org/wiki/Board_of_Longitude
Accessed, May 2010.

Wood, H. Australian Dictionary of Biography,
Vol. 1, 1966, p. 338.

Wood, H. Australian Dictionary of Biography,
Vol. 6, 1976, pp. 136, 137.

Wood, H. Australian Dictionary of Biography,
Vol:.6; 1976;spps 2510252:

Wood, H. Australian Dictionary of Biography,
Vol. 8, 1981, pp. 609, 610.

Wood, H. Australian Dictionary of Biography,
Vol. 10, 1986, pp. 73, 74.

This paper is the text of a lecture for the Royal Society and Sydney City Council at the Customs
House, Sydney on 4 April 2009 as part of the annual Heritage Festival. Dr Tyler is historian of
the Royal Society of New South Wales, and carried out research for this paper while Merewether
Scholar at the Mitchell Library, with a fellowship provided by the Library Council of New South

Wales.

Dr Peter Tyler, BA, MLitt, PhD, GradDipAdEd, HonFAIEH

Consultant Historian, Peter J Tyler Associates
Email: ptyler@bigpond.net.au

(Manuscript received 03.08.2009, accepted 03.09.2009)

Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Vol. 142, p. 15-23, 2009

ISSN 0035-9173/09/020015-9 $4.00/1

Pre-contact Astronomy

RAGBIR BHATHAL

Abstract: This paper examines a representative selection of the Aboriginal bark paintings
featuring astronomical themes or motives that were collected in 1948 during the American-
Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land in north Australia. These paintings were
studied in an effort to obtain an insight into the pre-contact social-cultural astronomy of the
Aboriginal people of Australia who have lived on the Australian continent for over 40000

years.

Keywords: American-Australian scientific expedition to Arnhem Land, Aboriginal astron-

omy, Aboriginal art, celestial objects.
INTRODUCTION

About 60 years ago, in 1948 an epic journey
was undertaken by members of the American-
Australian Scientific Expedition (AAS Expedi-
tion) to Arnhem Land in north Australia to
study Aboriginal society before it disappeared
under the onslaught of modern technology and
the culture of an invading European civilisation.
It was believed at that time that the Aborig-
ines were a dying race and it was important
to save and record the tangible evidence of
their culture and society. The leader of the
scientific expedition referred to Arnhem Land
as still being in the Stone Age (Mountford
1949). It was seen as the last frontier. The
philosophy that guided the collections of the
material culture of the Aboriginal people of
Arnhem Land was based on Social Darwinist
views which were prevalent in the 19th and early
twentieth centuries thinking among intellectuals
from the metropolitan centres of learning. They
held the view that there was an evolutionary
ladder in the progress of human beings and
cultures (Griffiths 1996). The Aborigines were
considered to be on the bottom rung of this
ladder.

The official aims of the expedition were to
observe the every day life of the Aborigines
of Arnhem Land, to determine where they
originally came from, to learn how they coped
with their environment and to obtain specimens
of their material culture (Mountford 1949).
The expedition was funded by the National
Geographic Society, the Smithsonian Institution
and the Commonwealth Government of Aus-

tralia. One of the reasons for the Common-
wealth Government supporting the expedition
was that it was anxious to foster good relations
between Australia and the US following World
II and the other was to establish scientific
cooperation between Australia and the US.

The Collection

The expedition was organised and led_ by
Charles Mountford, a film maker and lecturer
who worked for the Commonwealth Govern-
ment of Australia and an Honarary Assistant
in Ethonology at the South Australian Museum.
The bulk of the bark paintings and ethnographic
material were collected from the three base
camps at Groote Eylandt, Yirrkala in north-
east Arnhem Land and Oenpelli in western
Arnhem Land. They also visited Milingimbi
Island, Chasm Island and Winchelsa Island but
for shorter periods. The expedition lasted from
May to early November 1948. Mountford’s
collection strategy was to set up a ‘shop’ in a
big tent and ask the local people to bring goods
which they wanted to trade. It is not known
what he paid them but he obtained interpreta-
tions of the items the people brought to him.

In the case of the bark paintings, Mountford
(1956) asked the Aboriginal people to make
paintings for him. He says that he seldom
suggested a subject. At the end of the day, the
artists brought their work to his tent, related
the associated myth, and explained the mean-
ings of the designs. However, in the case of the
astronomical paintings, Mountford suggested
the subjects to be painted.

16 BHATHAL

Thus, the astronomical folklore was col-
lected within the perspective of the European
astronomical knowledge system and his limited
knowledge of astronomy. In fact, in his book
“Brown Men and Red Sand” (Mountford 1949),
wrote that although in the early days among the
Aborigines he could recognise Orion, Scorpio
and the Southern Cross, he found that the
other constellations such as Argo, Delphinus,
Hercules and others were beyond him. His
knowledge of the sky was backed with little
information. This is one of the reasons why the
information collected on the astronomy of the
Aborigines in Arnhem Land is rather limited
and confined to those celestial objects and parts
of the sky that Mountford was familiar with.
Only three examples are provided by him of
the actual Aboriginal constellations. However,
the information on these is not complete and
the stars are not indentified by Mountford.
Furthermore, the provenance of the paintings
leaves much to be desired. Whilst the loca-
tions where the paintings were collected from
is provided, however the information on the
artists who painted the astronomical paintings
is incomplete. Mountford notes that when the
supply of prepared sheets of bark at Yirrkalla
and Oenpelli became exhausted, he provided
the artists with sheets of rough-surfaced grey
and green paper (Mountford 1956). This ex-
plains why some of the paintings are on paper.

The interpretations that © Mountford
recorded were very basic. Since the artists
had to explain their paintings in broken
English it may be the case that the recorded
interpretations may be incomplete. He does
not tell us whether he checked the paintings
with the positions of the celestial bodies in
the night sky. He informs us that in the late
afternoon, when the Aboriginal artists had
finished their work, he would sit among them
listening to stories they had illustrated on sheets
of bark. Despite these short comings we have a
valuable collection of pre-contact stories of the
night sky which are illustrated by paintings.
It is probably the single largest collection of
astronomical paintings from an ancient culture.

The pigments used to paint the designs of
the bark paintings were red, yellow, black and

white. On Groote Eylandt the black came from
the carbon of dry batteries discarded by the
Air Force after the war. The paintings have
a mixture of the early style of cross-hatching,
broken lines, parallel lines, circles and circles
with radiating lines. The artists used three
kinds of brushes, viz: a narrow strip of bark,
chewed at one end for making broad lines, a thin
cylindrical stick with the ends slightly burred
for making dots and a brush made from a few
fibres of palm leaf to make fine lines.

The expedition was a great success. In addi-
tion to collecting 13500 plant specimens, 30 000
fish, 850 birds, 460 animals, the collection also
included 2 144 ethnographic artefacts, including
484 bark paintings (Mountford 1956). For the
purpose of this study it is rather unfortunate
that at the end of the expedition the collection
of bark paintings was dispersed to various insti-
tutions in Australia and the Smithsonian Insti-
tution in Washington in the US. Thirty six of
the bark paintings in the collection were on the
astronomy of the Aboriginal people. These were
also dispersed and as a consequence of this it has
been an extremely difficult task to locate them
in the various institutions. The astronomical
paintings have a collective story to tell. Unfor-
tunately this was not considered important by
the officials who sanctioned the distribution of
these works of art and in particular those on
the astronomy of the Aboriginal people. This
may have been due to the fact that the officials
lacked knowledge of astronomy. This paper is
concerned only with the astronomical paintings.

Aboriginal Astronomy

In the 19th and early twentieth centuries a
number of writers (Stanbridge 1861, Smyth
1878, Ridley 1875, Matthews 1905 and Mae-
garith 1932) had collected information on the
astronomical stories and beliefs of the Aborig-
inal people. One of the significant things that
emerges from these accounts is that astronomi-
cal knowledge was one of the principal branches
of education among Aboriginal people (Daw-
son 1881). Another remarkable aspect of their
astronomy is that long before other civilisations
had named the celestial objects the Aborigines
had given them names. For example, in Groote

PRE-CONTACT ASTRONOMY 17

Eylandt, the Milky Way was known as Ataluma,
the Coal Sack as Alakitja, Venus as Barnimbida,
the Moon as Jumuria and the star Achenar
as Anguoa. In other localities the celestial
objects were known by different names. The
astronomy of the Aboriginal people was based
on oral accounts that had been passed down
from one generation to another over the 40 000
years that they have lived on the Australian
continent.

In the 1940s when the AAS Expedition took
place the Aborigines in north Australia were
still enjoying the last vestiges of pre-contact
culture and society. Most of their cultural
heritage was intact although there were already
inroads in spoiling their culture by Christian
missionaries. Thus, the bark paintings that
were collected provide us with the only exam-
ples of the astronomical knowledge system of
the Aboriginal people in visual form. Thus, this
collection of 36 paintings is unique in that it not
only provides us with a visual representation
but is also supplemented with an oral testimony
of their meaning.

The subject of the paintings can be classified
into the following categories for ease of discus-
sion:

- Sun and Moon

- Planets: Venus and Jupiter

- Constellations and clusters: Southern Cross,
Scorpio, Orion and the Pleiades

- Galaxies: Magellanic Clouds and the
Milky Way

- Aboriginal constellations: Scorpion, the Crab
and the Crocodile, the Oppossum and
[bis-men.

The above list is not exhaustive of what
can be seen in the night sky at any one time
with the naked eye. They represent what was
of interest to the Aborigines in terms of their
social cultural astronomy and the information
that was collected by the collector. While there
are some resemblances between the myths of
Millingimbi and Yirrkala which are in relative
close proximity, those from Oenpelli, Groote
Eylandt and Yirrkala show differences. This
may be the result of the larger distances be-
tween these places and a lack of sustained
interaction between these communities.

The paintings are not just plain represen-
tations of the celestial objects that one sees in
the night sky. They are much more complex
and symbolic and thus they have to be inter-
preted by the artists since they have meanings
encoded in them. Unfortunately, Mountford
does not provide us with a full context for all
the paintings and the social cultural aspects of
the astronomy of the Aboriginal people.

Sun and Moon

The Sun and Moon are the most conspicuous
celestial objects and hence play an important
role in Aboriginal society and culture. Unlike
other cultures the Sun in Aboriginal social
cultural astronomy is seen as a woman. Hence,
it is given a lower status than the Moon which
is considered a male.

On Groote Eylandt the Sun-woman
(Mamoura) is associated with the female turtle,
Imoraka which is seen to leave and enter the wa-
ter again. This is illustrated by a song about the
turtle. These acts of leaving and entering the
water are used to explain the rising and setting
of the Sun. At another level the bark painting
does not just refer to the celestial objects and
their movements but it represents ancestral ce-
lestial beings who are related to creation stories,
such as the formation of the land or the islands
and to places of significance. ‘The Sun-woman
and her husband are seen as ancestral people
whose bodies when they died were transformed
into two low rocks on the seashore. Thus, what
is seen on the land is reflected in the sky and
vice-versa - an important philosophical concept
in Aboriginal society and culture. In Yirrkala,
the Sun-woman, Walo rises from a far away
place beyond the eastern horizon called ‘Turin-
jina and disappears beneath the western horizon
at a place called Biminura. She then changes
herself into a wallaby and returns again in the
east by hopping along an underground tunnel.
This story explains the rising and setting of the
Sun on a daily basis. In Milingimbi the Sun-
woman transforms herself into a Warrukay fish
in the evening and swims under the earth and
reappears in the morning as the Sun (Isaacs
1980). Since they are fishing communities it
is understandable that the imagery they use is
associated with fishing activities.

18 BHATHAL

The Moon is not only associated with death
but also pregnancy. This belief is not only
confined to the Aboriginal people of Arnhem
Land but is also shared by other Aboriginal
groups on the mainland. Young girls are told
not to look at the Moon unless they want to
become pregnant. In many stories in Aboriginal
social-cultural astronomy the Moon is associ-
ated with death. While everything on earth is
destined to die the Moon is reborn at the end of
every month. In Yirrkalla the explanation for
the resurrection of the Moon is explained thus.
In a heated argument the parrot-fish (Dirima)
and the Moon-man (Alinda) hit each other so
badly with their clubs that they died. The
spirit of the Moon-man told the spirit of the
parrot-fish that he would go to the sky and
become the Moon, while the parrot-fish and
everything else on earth would die. The Moon-
man, on the other hand would die for three days
and be reborn. The pearly nautilus (Nautilus
pompilius) is supposed to be the skeleton of
the dead Moon. The Aborigines on Groote
Eylandt and Yirrkalla have an explanation for
the waxing and waning of the Moon. According
to them we get a full Moon when the high tides
run into the Moon and make it fat and round.
When the tides are low, the water runs out of
the Moon and we get a thin Moon.

In Milingimbi the Moon has a different
origin. It is associated with the deceit and greed
of two sons who having caught a whistling duck
did not share it with their father. The angry
father put them in a bag and took them out to
sea and threw them overboard. In their anger
his wives set fire to the hut he was sleeping
in. He was carried away by the fire into the
sky where he turned into the Moon. From his
lofty position he decreed that every living thing
would die except himself. He would die for
three days a month and be born again. This
explains the phases of the Moon according to
the Aborigines at Milingimbi.

The status of these pre-scientific explana-
tions of the phases of the Moon are not dis-
similar to the pre-scientific explanations given
by Aristotelian physics as to why objects fall
to the ground or why projectiles are able to
move through the air. According to Aristotelian

physics an object falls to the ground because
it’s natural motion is towards the centre of the
earth. Aristotelians explained the continued
motion of a projectile or an arrow by saying
that the air which was being pushed and com-
pressed in front had to rush behind to prevent
a vacuum from forming there. They reasoned
that God hated a vacuum. It was criticisms
of these pre-scientific ideas of the Aristotelians
that eventually led to the rise of modern science
(Butterfield 1957).

The Planets

The stars and the planets that were observed by
the Aborigines were associated with family and
kinship relationships based on their philosophy
that what is practiced on the land is reflected
in the heavens. Thus, on Groote Eylandt
Venus and Jupiter have two children who are
the stars Lambda and Upsilon in the sting in
the constellation of Scorpio. In other parts of
Australia the Aboriginal people also used the
celestial bodies to represent family relationships
and kinship ties. Kinship ties formed the basis
of social structure in Aboriginal societies that
regulated marriage and other activities. The
Aranda and Luritja people at Hermannsburg in
Central Australia saw the night sky as two great
camps that were separated by a large river, the
Milky Way. The stars to the east of the celestial
river were known as Aranda camps and the stars
to the west of the river were considered to be
Luritja camps. ‘This division provided them
with a class system which regulated acceptable
marriages (Maegraith 1932).

Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and Venus were ob-
served by the Aborigines. Of these four planets,
Venus plays a significant role in Aboriginal life.
Venus is very conspicuous in the sky and the
Aborigines know it as the Morning and Evening
Star. To the Aborigines in northeastern Arn-
hem Land, Venus is known as the Morning
Star or Barnumbir and is associated with death.
Barnumbir is held on a long string by two
old women on the Island of the Dead (known
as Purelko in Yirrkalla, Djiraia in Milingimbi
or Bralgu) to ensure that Barnumbir does not
escape. In the painting (Figure 1) the morning
star is imprisoned in a bag shown at the bottom

PRE-CONTACT ASTRONOMY 19

of the painting by the two women. Just before
dawn Barnumbir is let out of the bag so that
the star can wake up the Aborigines and give
them messages from the dead. Each of the
blossoms represents a locality he visits withe
messages. At dawn the star is pulled back to
the shore and kept in a bag during the day. The
process is repeated again next morning. Since
Barnumbir is tied by a string the star never rises
very high in the sky and can thus be seen most
clearly at dawn or dusk. The Aboriginal people
in northeastern Arnhem Land perform morning
star ceremonies to ensure that the deceased
travels safely to the Land of the Dead. The
ancestral beings made feathered strings that
they attached to the Morning Star to guide
the dead person’s spirit or soul to his/her final
resting place. In the performance of the cere-
mony the Aborigines use a large pole decorated
with feathered strings and a ball or bunches
of sea gull feathers. The ball represents the
Morning Star. (Berndt, Berndt and Stanton
1998, Mountford 1956).

i

Figure 1. Venus — the Morning Star or
Barnumbir.

Constellations

The Southern Cross is the most famous con-
stellation in the southern hemisphere. It was
first observed by Andreas Corsali in 1572 on a
voyage to Goa in India (Bhathal and Bhathal
2007). But the Aboriginal people have been
observing it for over 40000 years. It is called
by various names and has a number of different
stories attached to it. There is a wide difference
in the interpretation of the Southern Cross
and the Pointers between Yirrkala and Groote
Eylandt. In Yirrkala it is seen as a sting ray
being chased by a shark (Figure 2). The Cross
is the sting ray while the shark represents the
Pointers. On the other hand at Groote Eylandt
the Southern Cross is seen in association with
the Coal Sack and the Pointers. Alpha and Beta
Crucis represent two brothers who have speared
a large fish (the Coal Sack) and are cooking
it on two fires represented by the other two
stars of the Southern Cross (Delta and Gamma
Crucis).

Figure 2. The Southern Cross.

20 BHATHAL

In contrast the Aborigines in central Aus-
tralia look upon the Southern Cross as the
footprints of the wedge-tailed eagle. | While
the pointers (Alpha and Beta Centauri) are his
throwing stick and the nearby Coal Sack (the
dark patch) is his nest (Mountford 1976). On
Stradbroke Island the Southern Cross is seen as
Mirabooka, a kindly man who has been put in
the sky by the Great Spirit, Biami to look after
his people (Walker 1972 ).

It is rather interesting to note that in many
cultures around the world the Pleiades are seen
as the seven sisters or a group of girls (Andrews
2004). They are normally associated with the
stars in the Orion which are seen as a group of
men or a man. On Groote Eylandt, Yirrkala
and Milingimbi, Orion and the Pleiades are
represented as fishermen and their wives respec-
tively who live in harmony. The representation
of Orion and the Pleiades as fishermen and their
wives is strongly linked to their style of living in
a fishing community. The painting (Figure 3)
shows a canoe which carries three fishermen
(stars in Orion’s belt) and their wives sitting at
the other end (Pleiades). The paddles represent
long lines of stars stretching to the north and
south. The fish in the sea may be other stars

in the Milky Way. It may be the case that
the association of the Pleiades with women was
transferred to the Aborigines in north Australia
by the Macassan fishermen who used to visit
north Australia on their fishing expeditions in
search of trepang (also known as sea-slug or
beche-de-mer). Trepang was prized by the
Chinese community in South East Asia for its
culinary as well as supposed aphrodisiac prop-
erties (Mulvaney and Kamminga 1999). The
harmonious relationship which existed between
Orion and the Pleiades in north Australia is not
repeated in the stories of these celestial objects
as seen by the Aborigines in Central Australia.
Here the stories are of violence where the men in
Orion are constantly chasing the seven sisters.
It also needs to be pointed out that the sto-
ries about the Pleiades are classified as secret
women’s business in some parts of Australia
and are only known to those who need to know
them. The secrecy of these stories has had dire
consequences for some Aboriginal groups, such
as in the case of the Hindmarsh Island Bridge
Affair where a bridge was built between the
mainland and the island with absolute disregard
for the tradition and culture of the Aboriginal
women (Simons 2003).

Figure 3. Orion (the three stars on the left) and the Pleiades (the seven stars

on the right).

PRE-CONTACT ASTRONOMY 21

Galaxies

There are two galaxies of interest to the Abo-
rigines. These are the Milky Way galaxy and
the Magellanic Clouds. Far away from city
lights, the Magellanic Clouds can be seen with
the naked eye as two fuzzy patches of light
in the night sky. On Groote Eylandt they
are interpreted as the camps of an old man
(Large Magellanic Cloud) and an old woman
(Small Magellanic Cloud) who cook their food
over a fire which is represented according to
Mountford by the bright star Achernar (mag-
nitude 0.43). The star is more likely to be

Gamma Hydri (magnitude 3.25) in keeping with
the significance of fainter stars in Aboriginal
[Brighter stars have numerically
Thus,

astronomy.
smaller magnitudes than fainter stars.

Figure 4. The Magellanic Clouds.

a star of magnitude 0.43 is brighter than a
star of magnitude 3.25. The magnitude is a
measure of the brightness of a star.|. However,
in Yirrkalla the Magellanic Clouds are given a
different interpretation. They are interpreted as
the homes of an older sister (lower figure), Nujai
who lives with her dog in the Large Magellanic
Cloud and a younger sister (upper figure),
Narai who lives with her dog and children in
the Small Magellanic Cloud (Figure 4). The
interpretation of these celestial objects is quite
different in other Aboriginal communities on the
mainland. For example, in central Australia
the Magellanic Clouds are looked upon as the
homes of the Kungara brothers. The Aborigines
believe that the Kungara brothers watch over
them from the sky and punish or reward them
according to their deeds (Mountford 1976).

22 BHATHAL

The Milky Way which spreads like a broad
white band from one horizon to the other is
one of the most spectacular celestial objects to
grace the night sky over Australia. It is seen by
almost all Aboriginal groups as a river in the sky
where the sky people live. In creation times the
Milky Way was seen as a water course near Blue
Mud Bay by the Aboriginal people in Yirrkala.
This river is reflected in the sky as the Milky
Way according to the Aborigines in Yirrkala.
The story of two brothers who were caught in
a storm after a fishing trip is depicted in the
Milky Way. They did not survive the storm
and drowned. Their bodies and their canoe are
the dark patches in the Milky Way.

Aboriginal Constellations

Mountford was informed of three Aboriginal
constellations which bore their own Aboriginal
names. Very little information of these con-
stellations is recorded by him in the notes of
the expedition. He mentions the Aboriginal
constellation of Scorpion which it would appear
is in the European constellation of Lupus. Un-
fortunately the names of the stars which make
up this constellation are not provided. The
Aboriginal constellation of the crab (Unwala)
gives us an interesting insight into some aspects
of the organisation of Aboriginal astronomy.
They were more interested in the patterns made
by the stars rather than their brightness and
this led them to disregard the brighter more
obvious nearby stars. Thus, at Groote Eylandt,
the Aboriginal people gave the name Unwala to
a group of rather inconspicuous stars (with an
average magnitude of 4.4) at the head of the Eu-
ropean constellation Hydra. They disregarded
the two bright nearby stars, viz: Procyon and
Regulus which have magnitudes of 0.36 and 1.35
respectively. ‘They were also more interested
in identifying a group of stars to support their
stories.

The stars in the European constellation of
Scorpio have been grouped by the Aborigines
in Yirrkalla into two Aboriginal constellations,
viz: the Crocodile and the Opossum and the
Ibis-men. The Crocodile constellation is made
up of the stars from the sting (i.e. Lambda
and Upsilon Scorpio) to the star Sigma Scorpio

near the bright red star Antares. In the second
group, Antares is the Opossum man. The two
stars (Tau Scorpio and Rho Scorpio) on either
side of Antares make up the Ibis-men.

Stars and Seasons

From the rather patchy information we can
glean from the paintings, it is clear that the —
Aboriginal people in north-east Australia had
developed the beginnings of a correlation be-
tween the appearance of certain stars in the
sky with the seasons and the beginning or end
of certain activities. Thus, on Groote Eylandt
when the stars Lambda and Upsilon Scorpi in
the constellation Scorpio made their appearance
in the sky towards the end of April the Aborig-
ines knew that the wet season had ended and the
dry south-easterly wind (Marimariga) would
begin to blow. In Yirrkala the appearance
of Scorpio informed them that the Macassan
fishermen were coming to collect the trepang.
When Arcturus could be seen in the eastern
sky in the early morning, it was a sign to the
Aborigines in Arnhem Land that it was time
to make fish traps and baskets from the spike-
rush. This correlation between the appearance
of certain stars and the seasons was also used by
the Aborigines for ordering their daily activities.

The association of the stars with the seasons
was also used in other parts of Australia. Thus,
when the Pleiades appeared in the dawn sky,
the Pitjantjatjura in the Western Desert region
knew that the annual dingo breeding season had
begun. A few weeks later they would raid the
lairs to feast on the young pups. In western
Victoria, the appearance of Arcturus told the
Aborigines where to find the pupa of the wood
ant which served as a source of food.

Conclusion

The collection of thirty-six bark and paper
paintings collected by the American-Australian
Expedition to Arnhem Land has provided us
with some aspects of the pre-contact astronomy
of the Aboriginal people living in this part of the
world. The paintings are unique in that they
not only provide us with a visual representation
of Aboriginal social cultural astronomy but they

PRE-CONTACT ASTRONOMY 23

are supplemented with the oral testimony of
their meaning. This group of bark paintings is
the largest single visual collection of pre-contact
astronomy in Australia. It is thus important
that they should be brought together and placed
in a single institution and called the Aboriginal
Astronomical Heritage Collection.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the State Library of South Aus-
tralia and the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre
for use of the images of Aboriginal paintings. I
also wish to thank Suzy Russell (State Library
of South Australia), Stan Florek (Australian
Museum), Andy Greenslade (National Museum
of Australia), Bruce McClean (Queensland Art
Gallery) and Cara Pinchbeck (Art Gallery of
NSW), Djon Mundine (Campbelltown Art Cen-
tre) and Andrew Blake (Buku-Larrnggay Mulka
Centre) for assistance and helpful comments.

References

Andrews, M., 2004. The Seven Sisters of the
Pleiades. Spinifex Press. North Melbourne.
Berndt, R.M., Berndt, C.H. with Stanton, J.E.

1998. Aboriginal Art. New Holland. Sydney.

Bhathal, R. & Bhathal, J. 2007. Australian
Backyard Astronomy. National Library of
Australia. Canberra.

Butterfield, H. 1957. The Origins of Modern
Science. The Free Press. New York.

Dawson, J. 1881. Australian Aborigines: The
Languages and Customs of Several Tribes of
Aborigines in the Western District of Victo-
ria. George Robertson. Sydney.

Griffiths, T. 1996. Hunters and Collectors.
Cambridge University Press.

Isaacs, J. 1980. Australian Dreaming. Lans-
downe Press. Sydney.

Maegraith, B.G. 1932. The astronomy of the
Aranda and Loritja tribes. Transactions of
the Royal Society of South Australia 56, 19—
26.

Matthews, R.H. 1905. Ethnological Notes on
the Aboriginal Tribes of New South Wales
and Victoria. F.W. White. Sydney.

Mountford, C.P. 1949. Exploring stone age
Arnhem Land. National Geographic Maga-
zine 96(6), 745-782.

Mountford, C.P. 1949. Brown Men and
Red Sand: Journeyings in Wild Australia.
Robertson & Mullens. Melbourne.

Mountford, C.P. 1956. Art, Myth and Sym-
bolism. Vol 1. Records of the American-
Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem
Land. Melbourne University Press. Mel-
bourne.

Mountford, C.P. 1976. Nomads of the Aus-
tralian Desert. Rigby. Adelaide.

Mulvaney, D.J. & Kamminga, J. 1999. Prehis-
tory of Australia. Allen & Unwin. Sydney.
Ridley, W. 1875. Kamilaroi and Other Aus-
tralian Languages. Government Printer.

Sydney.

Simons, M. 2003. Meeting of the Waters: The
Hindmarsh Island Affair. Hodder. Sydney.
Smyth, R. 1878. The Aborigines of Victoria.

Government Printer. Melbourne.

Stanbridge, W. 1861. Some particulars of
the general characteristics, astronomy, and
mythology of the tribes in the central parts
of Victoria, Southern Australia. Transactions
of the Ethnological Society of London 1, 286—
304.

Walker, K. 1972. Stradbroke Dreamtime.
Angus and Robertson. Sydney.

Dr Ragbir Bhathal
OZ OSETI Project

School of Engineering, University of Western Sydney

Locked Bag 1797, Penrith South DC
NSW 1797
Australia

(Manuscript received 08.10.2009, accepted 09.11.2009)

(WO vcyl eae rah rite wy. ae mae

iii Aeon NEA, ives Jayenge! ly 4 he
r a ehhh | c phon ee | al , (utah hte i Ne
ee Wr a i ary. Ra HM, ( Alta We mW: wie
mths Ay 1 ith aT ad vig! eR
hive. 4 ye wealy 1% iis ‘Heaghe y hie By dann

iq ye Cahn agen: brary baaas ,

Nd? Sree

Nore - of aie fit be

r : 7
mp yw) Weis - ea) tenes it ee
+ , é
rt | 4
WA
—
- } 4 i
i]
7 | web
} rulbl
Pi } a it
i are e oel
i‘
j >
{
} a
|
a
Re ; 4 ¥
4 F Md
= ye —~ , (
i
Py *
: ronal unett Arp abana
‘ ; ri ; eens it mint ate
| Me ne
i = : \ - j } *" ~ 4 ar Loa i A,
y cies ect : ia
| 7) rg eh eu j Hee haan J ae | ba
; j si hi Piss. ty '
4 y : pes / Lat ir B at A pariah, 1s sipite ih
1 : | |
4 . db ; 4 " ;
a = aise ' Yay pa ied | bi (Ss fear ani
< ' ¢c i = ae ee,
i F , ' ' r a Wi y * ' is rE
cee | - hy . 1 > { | ead
> aie { \ ' # ( i oa"
F ‘ 4 eie) th ae wi) i bby)! ey Pod o bh che py
; .j ype ak? rm pl nnipty
\ »™ :
htt, Hi ah
4 ee eis tb who he
= ss
- fia a ad
; ay a:
nea) a rt a
* i‘ ; Sean Nh
FPO Mee eh Py wh yy
aa ee ee
f _ r Daerah yt
i iy he eles eB tees ek wi
3 ah | y . 1
Sn ic \
© fie .

Journal €& Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Vol. 142, p. 25-30, 2009

ISSN 0035-9173/09/020025-6 $4.00/1

Stellar Astrophysics

RAGBIR BHATHAL

Abstract:

Michael Bessell has been the most cited author at the Research School of

Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University for the past 12 years and
is one of 33 Australian Citation Laureates for work carried out between 1981 and 1988.

He is internationally recognized for his work in photometry and his filter systems have become
standard filters in use at most observatories throughout the world. His research interests
include the study of the evolution of different mass stars and the build up of elements in these
stars, searches for the most metal-poor stars, searches for proto-planetary disks and proto-
planets and brown dwarfs through a study of young M dwarfs, temperature calibration of
stars, astronomical photometry and instrumentation. He has made significant contributions

in each of these areas of astronomical research.

Keywords: Standard photometric systems, stellar evolution, AGB stars, M dwarfs

EARLY LIFE

Michael Bessell grew up in a home where there
was always talk at the dinner table about educa-
tion and the ‘politics of the teaching profession.’
His grandfather who was a headmaster was the
President of the Tasmanian ‘Teacher’s Federa-
tion and he knew ‘not only Joe Lyons but also
all the socialist members of Parliament while his
father was the Secretary of the Workers Educa-
tion Association. So in this environment it was
natural that they believed ‘that the only way
for people to achieve in the world was to gain a
good education. ‘This philosophy was instilled
in Bessell at a very young age. According to
Bessell, ‘my parents brought us up to have the
idea that the only way to succeed was to do well
at school’ He attended government schools and
for his secondary education he attended Hobart
High School, a selective high school.

As a young boy he read ‘lots and lots of
books and our family had a great respect for
books, Interestingly he read books on archae-
ology. ‘I can remember looking through the
Illustrated London News and seeing pictures
of scientists at work digging up tombs from
different places and so I always had the idea of
being a scientist even though I wasn’t sure what
a scientist was. He was also curious about how
things work. The mechanical advantage that
pulleys and levers provide fascinated him. ‘I
was fascinated by the idea of the way pulleys
and levers worked and how people could master

the environment by using them. Algebra and
mathematics held a similar fascination for him.
‘The idea that you let X be something and you
could solve for it, really came as a wonderful
idea and I was forever solving problems after
this.

INTEREST IN ASTRONOMY

His interest in astronomy came later. It was
fired by Bart Bok, the then Director of the
Mount Stromlo Observatory who according to
Bessell, ‘was an amazing publicist and enthusi-
ast. It was Bok’s aim I think in life to speak to
as many people in Australia as possible about
astronomy. He attended some of his lectures
at university and was ‘absolutely fascinated by
his showmanship and the fascinating pictures
that he would show, ‘That is what stimulated
a great interest of my doing astronomy.’

He went up to the University of Tasmania
for his undergraduate studies on a teacher’s
scholarship. It was natural for him he said
to go into teaching. ‘My grandfather was a
teacher, my mother was a teacher and my aunts
were teachers. However, this was to change in
his honours year when for his honours project
he did a radio astronomy project under Ellis,
the professor of physics who was very well
known for his ‘mathematical theories of the
ionosphere? At the time he was studying in
the physics department there were two other

26 BHATHAL

well known physicists, viz: F.D. Cruickshank
and Hans Buchdahl. Cruickshank was ‘very
famous for his invention of paraxial coefficients
of optics’ According to Bessell ‘this for the first
time enabled people other than the scientists at
Zeiss to make lens systems. And people who
graduated through the physics department at
the University of Tasmania went on to found
optic companies in America to build cameras
for the U2s. It led to a whole lot of work
during the war of designing optics and they were
able reproduce these Zeiss patents from first
principles’ Buchdahl was famous for his work
on the theory of general relativity and later
moved to the Australian National University.

For his project he measured the galactic
radio radiation at 1.5 and 2.5 Megahertz. This
work along with observations made with an-
other student, Michael Waterworth led to his
first paper in Nature (Ellis et al. 1962). The
article appeared under the names of Ellis, Wa-
terworth and Bessell. It happened that Fred
Hoyle was visiting Tasmania at that time and
he reviewed their observations and gave them
an explanation of the phenomena. It was this
‘first chance to meet Fred Hoyle, a well known
British astronomer’. He was most impressed
with Hoyle.

MOUNT STROMLO
OBSERVATORY

For his PhD he went to the Australian National
University’s Mount Stromlo Observatory where
Bart Bok was a professor of physics. It was
Bessell said, ‘the only place really in Australia
to do optical astronomy’ at that time. His
topic was on variable stars and it was a field
in which he was to become an international
authority. Variable stars are stars whose lu-
minosity changes. By studying variable stars
astronomers are able to find important aspects
of a star’s mass, its radius and temperature.
His particular variable stars were called Dwarf
Cepheids and Delta Scuti stars. These stars,
he said, ‘had been discovered quite recently and
they had periods between one and about four
hours’ Some of them had large amplitudes of
up to half a magnitude and ‘light curves which

resembled the famous RR Lyrae stars which are
found in globular clusters’? The stars he had
chosen for his study ‘were unknown and they
were not in clusters and hence people didn’t
know what their luminosity was’ ‘They didn’t
know what evolutionary stage they were at and
it was a fascinating thesis to try and work out
what these stars were’, according to Bessell.
Others who had studied them considered them
to be similar to the very old and low mass
RR Lyrae stars, but this made very little sense
because most of them had very low motions
like the Sun and stars which are more massive
than the Sun. What he discovered was ‘that
people were measuring the effective gravity by
fitting the energy distribution and it turns out
that there was an error in the fundamental
calibration of the energy distribution of Alpha
Lyrae.’ He was able to correct ‘this error in
the energy distribution, correct gravities for the
stars and show that they had mass of one and
half times that of normal main sequence stars
which happened to be evolving through the
instability strip. This work got him interested
in the energy distribution of stars, model at-
mospheres of stars and the fundamental impor-
tance of getting the calibrations right. This also
meant obtaining fundamental data for stars.
It is interesting to note that the instrument
(photoelectric scanner) that he used for his work
is now on display at the Museum of Applied
Arts and Science in Sydney.

AT YERKES OBSERVATORY

He spent sometime at Yerkes Observatory to
work as an associate with Bob O’Dell who
had been appointed the new Director of the
Observatory. He was involved in commissioning
a new spectrograph that was being built for
that telescope and also carrying out a research
program on symbiotic stars. While there he also
had the opportunity of meeting Chandrashekar
who was the editor of the Astrophysical Journal
and a Nobel Prize winner. One of the benefits
he derived by being at Yerkes was that he was
able to meet quite a number of astronomers
who were working in various fields, such as the
spectral classification of stars. ‘So meeting these

STELLAR ASTROPHYSICS Zt

people and being associated with them I think
gave me a much broader interest in the kind of
stellar physics which I was interested in’

In 1969 he was appointed a Research Fellow
at the Mount Stromlo Observatory at the Aus-
tralian National University. He has remained
there ever since and was eventually appointed
to a professorship in 1998. He came back
to Australia because it was ‘a research only
position and that was very attractive position
to come back to’

HIGH CITATIONS

He has a track record of highly cited publica-
tions and was awarded the Institute of Scientific
Information, Australian Citation Laurette. One
of the papers he wrote in 1979 while he was at
Kitt Peak generated the most of his citations
(Bessell 1979). He had gone to Kitt Peak
because one of his students, Harvey Butcher,
Jeremy Mould and Garth Ellingworth were
there. Butcher is now the Director of the
Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observato-
ries. Butcher, he said was ‘doing some exciting
things with new image area detectors. He was
also looking at other detectors’ It became
obvious to him that one of the problems with
the photometric detectors that were being used
was that they were very poorly calibrated and
the northern hemisphere ‘standards were really
quite terrible’? In South Africa Cousins had
been carrying out excellent work in setting up
standards for photometric observations. Unfor-
tunately the northern hemisphere astronomers
were not aware of his work.

Most astronomers had been ‘brought up to
believe that broadband photometry using very
wide bands of 800 Angstroms was impossible to
do high precision work with’? The Europeans,
Stromgren and a lot of Americans assumed
that the ‘only way you could do high precision
work was to use narrowbands. Bessell was
able to disprove this assumption. ‘I started to
observe Cousins’ standards using both northern
hemisphere broadband standards. Cousins’
standards were five times more precise than the
northern hemisphere broadband standards. So
I realised that it was not the broadband that

was the problem it was just the lousy work
that the northern hemisphere astronomers had
been doing’ Butcher encouraged him to write
a paper about this and to ‘provide transfor-
mations between other photometric systems’
and to also say what he considered ‘to be
the best photometric system to use’ He did
this and had over 972 citations for his paper
(Bessell 1979). He went on to write other
papers after that, again going into more detail
on the problems with the northern hemisphere
red photometric system. His work expanded
into ‘trying to understand the bands used for
photometric systems so that we could synthesise
them with model atmospheric fluxes and do
synthetic photometry and from spectral photo-
metric observations of galaxies and quasars and
everything else.” ‘And to do that,’ he said, ‘you
have to reverse engineer standard photometric
systems and so it all kind of tied it all up over
a period of 20 to 25 years (Bessell & Brett
1988, Bessell 1990, Bessell 2005)’. He worked
in this area up to the time that photoelectric
photometry reached its zenith. It has now more
or less vanished. It has been taken over by
CCDs and it is very likely that ‘all photometry
will be done by survey telescopes’. The main
advantage of the CCD is that one is ‘able to
do multiple objects. Furthermore, the CCD is
completely linear,

About the time when this period came to an
end the Sloan Survey had made its appearance.
Similarly the Hipparcos Catalogue was also
released about the same time. According to
Bessell, ‘For the first time with the Hipparcos
Catalogue the whole sky was covered with
observations which are well standardized, going
to very faint magnitudes.” However, with a new
photometric system one has to work out how
the old photometric systems relate to the new
photometric systems. Bessell wrote a paper on
Hipparcos colours and found that there were
some problems with the Hipparcos photometry.
He is now involved with building the Skymapper
telescope at Siding Spring with Brian Schmidt.
According to Bessell, ‘Brian Schmidt plans to
map the sky with a system similar to the
Sloan system but with better sensitivity to
measure the abundances and effective gravities

28 BHATHAL

of stars. He believes that we are going to be
the first group that will provide the necessary
precise standards for planned southern hemi-
sphere large telescope surveys’. The Skymapper
survey will be taking snapshots. ‘We will have a
single CCD which will take an image of the sky.
Then move the telescope and another image of
the sky will be taken. So all stars in an image
will have precisely the same image profile. And
so Brian Schmidt believes we will be able to
do much better photometry in this way than
any other survey has ever been able to do’
Skymapper will have a seven degree field of view
and will also give very precise positions as well
as photometry.

Bessell’s work on long period variables in
the Magellanic Clouds led to an important
identification with respect to the Asymptotic
Giant Branch (AGB) stars and new insights
into stellar evolution (Wood et al. 1983). AGB
stars refer to the last nuclear-burning stage in
the evolution of stars after they leave the main
sequence. According to Bessell, ‘stars in this
stage are burning helium and hydrogen in shells
surrounding a core of carbon and _ nitrogen’
‘One of the interesting things about this time
of its evolution,’ he continued, ‘is that this kind
of burning is very unstable and it can flare up
and drop back down again. During the inter
pulse periods material can be dredged up to the
surface and when we look at the atmospheres
of these stars we can see the elements that are
being created deep inside these stars. So these
stars are actually a primordial source of carbon
and nitrogen and also some of the heavier
elements, such as lead and uranium, Along with
Peter Wood he found another interesting thing
about stellar evolution. They were able to work
out ‘what mass stars turn into supernovae and
which stars turn into white dwarfs’ This was
not known until the work carried out by Wood
and Bessell. Bessell’s work on AGB stars was a
big breakthrough in AGB evolution.

He has been involved in the study of metal
or heavy element abundance in stars. About
twenty years ago he discovered CD-38 245 which
was the most deficient star ever formed (Bessell
& Norris, 1984). It was deficient by a factor
of 30,000 with respect to the Sun. It implied

that it was formed soon after our Galaxy came
into existence. So a study of the abundances
of the elements in its atmosphere can tell us
about the kind of stars that were formed in the
very first generation of star formation. About
eighteen years later Bessell’s group discovered
HE 0107-5240 (Christlieb et al. 2004, Bessell et
al. 2004). This is a very low mass star with
iron abundances as low as 1/200 000 of the
solar abundance of iron. It had implications
for the study of star formation theory and
the synthesis of chemical elements in the early
universe. According to Bessell, ‘interestingly
enough these stars, even though they were
low in iron, they were very high in carbon,
oxygen, nitrogen and sodium. And there seems
to be an explanation for this’ ‘So what we
believe’, he said, ‘is HEO107-5240 was formed
from the supernova ejecta of very massive 25
solar mass first generation supergiant formed
soon after the Big Bang. It produced a lot of
carbon and nitrogen through normal chemical
evolution of hydrogen and helium so it had
an outside envelope of carbon, nitrogen and
oxygen. This was ejected partly with stellar
winds and then the star underwent a massive
supernova explosion but there was so much
envelope on top of the star that the supernova
did not completely break out. A lot of the
material got remixed and reprocessed but only
a little was ejected. Most of it fell back into a
black hole. So you have a 25 solar mass star
which ends up as a 20 solar mass black hole.
A lot of the carbon, nitrogen and oxygen was
expelled in the interstellar medium but only a
very smail percentage of iron escaped.’

Bessell has worked on stars varying from O
stars to M stars. In fact, the whole width and
depth of the main sequence. Whilst hunting
for the coolest and oldest white dwarfs on the
Anglo Australian Telescope ‘we found many M
dwarfs and a lot of M sub-dwarfs which had
never been seen before. This led to publications
on the properties of M dwarfs and the discovery
of extremely metal-deficient low mass stars_
Because of his knowledge of M dwarfs he was
invited by Inseok Song and Ben Zuckerman
from the University of California to collaborate
with them on the study of young stars which

STELLAR ASTROPHYSICS 29

will enable imaging and spectroscopic studies
of the origin and early evolution of planetary
systems (Zuckerman & Song 2004). Beta Pic
was a very interesting star that had recently
been discovered to have a duty disk around it,
but because it was an isolated A star noone
knew its age or what evolutionary stage it was
at. From the work they did together they found
another 30 stars which according to Bessell,
‘were sharing the same space motions as Beta
Pic and so in effect it gave us a mini cluster’
They were then able to get an age for the
cluster or the moving group on the basis of the
luminosities of the pre-main sequence M stars
that they had found. This gave them the age of
Beta Pic. ‘This makes it much more interesting
from an evolutionary point of view because we
can now understand its history’, he said.

Apart from his research work he has also
served as a consultant for astronomy for New
Zealand. In 2002 he did a review of New
Zealand’s capability to build a spectrograph for
SALT (Southern African Large Telescope). He
visited New Zealand and inspected the facilities
in Christchurch, Auckland and Wellington to
asses whether they had the background and
the capabilities to build scientific instruments.
He found they did and ‘wrote a very positive
appraisal of that possibility and that enabled
them to take that to the Vice-Chancellor of the
University of Canterbury and get his support
for the University joining SALT with a hope
that other universities would join in. Unfor-
tunately the other universities did not take
up the offer so the University of Canterbury
has now joined SALT but the rest of the New
Zealand astronomers have not. In 2004 the
New Zealand Ministry of Research and Science
invited him to review New Zealand’s need for
a national observatory because Carter Observa-
tory, which was the national observatory, was
unable to continue doing active research and
wished to become a charitable trust concen-
trating on astronomical outreach. One of the
issues was that the University of Canterbury’s
Mount John Observatory was performing most
of the functions of a national observatory but
was ‘receiving nothing from the government
for performing that role’ Bessell pointed out

in his report that ‘it was very difficult for a
single astronomer or a single physicist within
a department in New Zealand to get much
support for astronomical research. A national
observatory could provide the kind of support
and encouragement for joint collaborations that
would be good for New Zealand science and
education. It would stimulate the same kind of
growth in astronomical interest that Australia
certainly has had over the last 20 years” The
government is still considering the report.
Bessell is a very active and productive re-
searcher and thus it is interesting to find out
what is his research strategy. ‘I have been very
lucky in my research in being in the southern
hemisphere and having access to front line in-
strumentation and having a reasonable amount
of observing time for most of my projects. I also
have very good colleagues many of whom are
theoreticians. I have also visited different obser-
vatories and talked with many people there and
was able to either get ideas from them or work
with them on interesting projects. So it is a kind
of synergy of interacting and encouraging others
to collaborate, of creating and fostering the
networking of astronomers around the world’

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author wishes to thank the National Li-
brary of Australia for sponsoring the National
Oral History Project on significant Australian
astronomers. The interview with Michael
Bessell was conducted on 30 September 2005.
The full transcript of the interview (nla.oh-
5527) is held in the archives of the National
Library of Australia.

REFERENCES

Bessell, M.S. 1979., UBVRI photometry II:
The Cousins VRI system, its temperature
and absolute flux calibration, and relevance
for two-dim photometry. Publications of the
Astronomical Society of the Pacific 91, 589—
607.

Bessell, M.S. & Brett, J.M. 1988. JHKLM
photometry: Standard systems, passbands
and intrinsic colors. Publications of the As-

30 BHATHAL

tronomical Society of the Pacific 100, 1134—
1151.

Bessell, M.S. 1990. UBVRI passbands. Pub-
lications of the Astronomical Society of the
Pacific 102, 1181-1199.

Bessell, M.S., et al. 2004. On the oxygen abun-
dance of HE 0107-5240. The Astrophysical
Journal 612L, 61.

Bessell, M.S. 2005. Standard photometric
systems. Annual Review of Astronomy &
Astrophysics 43, 1-38.

Christlieb, N., et al. 2004. HE 0107-5240, a
chemically ancient star. I. A detailed abun-
dance analysis. The Astrophysical Journal
603, 708-728.

Ellis, G.R., et al. 1962. Spectrum of the galactic
radio emission between 10 MHz and 1.5 MHz.
Nature 196, 1079.

Song, I, et al. 2003. New members of the TW
Hydrae association, Beta Pictoris moving
group and Tucana/Horologium association.
The Astrophysical Journal 599, 342-350.

Song, I., et al. 2004. Erratum: New members
of the TW Hydrae association, Beta Pictoris
moving group and Tucana/Horologium asso-
ciation. The Astrophysical Journal 603, 804—
805.

Wood, P.R., et al. 1983. Long-period variables
in the Magellanic Clouds: Supergiants, AGB
stars, supernovae precursors, and enrichment

of the interstellar medium. The Astrophysical
Journal 272, 99-115.

Zukerman, B. & Song, I. 2004. Young stars near
the Sun. Annual Reviews of Astronomy &
Astrophysics 42, 685-721.

Dr Ragbir Bhathal
OZ OSETI Project

School of Engineering, University of Western Sydney

Locked Bag 1797, Penrith South DC
NSW 1797
Australia

(Manuscript received 08.10.2009, accepted 09.11.2009)

Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Vol. 142, p. 31-44, 2009
ISSN 0035-9173/09/020031-14 $4.00/1

Does Grey Nurse Shark (Carcharias taurus)
Diving Tourism Promote Biocentric Values
Within Participants?

KIRBY SMITH, MARK SCARR AND DR CAROL SCARPACI

Abstract: In Australia, humans can dive with critically endangered grey nurse sharks
(Carcharias taurus) at Fish Rock, New South Wales. This industry has the potential
to improve the environmental knowledge of participants and encourage pro-environmental
attitudes within tourists. This study surveyed tourists pre and post participation in grey
nurse shark dives to ascertain if the experience positively influenced the grey nurse shark
knowledge and biocentric attitudes of tourists (short-term). Educational talks were provided
to tourists of alternating boat trips to assess if education had a significant impact upon the
knowledge and biocentrism of these tourists compared with those that were not provided with
a talk. Survey data were collected across eight grey nurse shark dive boat trips from December
2008 to January 2009. Results indicated that those individuals likely to participate in a grey
nurse shark dive were generally already knowledgeable and biocentric, hence the scope for
further improvement was quite narrow. Significant improvements to the grey nurse shark
knowledge and biocentric attitudes of tourists post dive were detected, however the majority
of these improvements occurred within tourists already considered to be highly biocentric and
knowledgeable pre dive experience. ‘The provision of educational talks significantly improved
the knowledge of participants but not their biocentrism. These findings are of importance as
they highlight that the contribution the industry may provide to conservation by improving the
biocentric attitudes and environmental knowledge of tourists may be minimal. Furthermore,
it is important that accurate educational resources are developed and provided to tourists pre
and post dive to avoid the development of misconceptions by tourists during grey nurse shark
dives.

Keywords: Grey nurse shark, Carcharias taurus, biocentric, biocentrism, pro-environmental,

shark dive, nature-based tourism.

INTRODUCTION

In Australia, humans can SCUBA dive with criti-
cally endangered grey nurse sharks (Carcharias
taurus Rafinesque, 1810) at Fish Rock, New
South Wales (Environment Australia 2002).
Historically, the grey nurse shark in Australia
was inaccurately portrayed as a ‘man-eater’,
largely due to its formidable appearance (En-
vironment Australia 2002, Boissonneault et al.
2005, Kessler 2005). Subsequently, grey nurse
sharks were targeted by spear and line fishers
in attempts to remove the species from the
east coast of Australia, hence its current con-
servation status (Environment Australia 2002,
Stow et al. 2006). The grey nurse shark
dive industry has the potential to quash such
perceptions, to exert positive influences on the

pro-environmental attitudes of tourists and to
improve their knowledge of the species and the
marine environment (Zeppel & Muloin 2008).
This in turn may encourage tourists to adopt
more pro-environmental behaviours (Mayes et
al. 2004), such as abiding by regulatory man-
agement practices.

Scientific research is necessary to assess
the validity of the claim that nature-based
tourism has the potential to positively im-
pact upon tourists’ pro-environmental attitudes
and environmental knowledge (Higham et al.
2009). Research methodologies of earlier studies
incorporated the use of surveys to ascertain
the environmental attitudes and knowledge of
tourism participants (Wilson & Tisdell 2003,
Finkler & Higham 2004, Mayes et al. 2004,
Hughes & Saunders 2005, Christensen et al.

32 SMITH et al.

2007, Powell & Ham 2008, Mayes & Richins
2009). Some of these studies (Wilson & Tisdell
2003, Finkler & Higham 2004, Mayes et al. 2004,
Christensen et al. 2007, Mayes & Richins 2009)
surveyed participants immediately post tourism
experience. The current study surveyed grey
nurse shark dive tourists pre and post dive to
ascertain the influence of this industry on im-
proving pro-environmental views and values, i.e.
biocentrism (Des Jardins 2001), and knowledge
within participants. The potential of education
to further increase biocentrism and knowledge
within tourists was also investigated. It appears
that this is the first study to document and com-
pare biocentric attitudes and shark knowledge
within shark dive tourists pre and post dive.

METHODS

A total of 27 SCUBA diver-grey nurse shark
interactions across 15 boat trips were observed
and documented at Fish Rock in New South
Wales, Australia, from December 2008 to Jan-
uary 2009. Grey nurse shark dive tour boats
depart from South West Rocks and travel to
Fish Rock as shown in Map 1. The researcher

Fishermans Reach’

etty

South West*
Rocks

travelled to and from Fish Rock onboard a 7.5
metre catamaran belonging to a local tourism
operation.

To assess if this form of nature-based
tourism improved the environmental knowledge
of participants and encouraged them to adopt
more biocentric values and attitudes in the
short-term, participants were asked to complete
a written survey (of approximately five minutes)
prior to a grey nurse shark dive and then again
post dive: a method found to be effective in
earlier nature-based tourism research (Hughes
& Saunders 2005, Powell & Ham 2008). Pre and
post dive surveys were completed by tourists
onboard the dive vessel. Survey participa-
tion was voluntary and a total of 47 paired
surveys (consisting of both pre and post dive
surveys) were completed by grey nurse shark
dive tourists across eight of fourteen boat trips.
The first two dives (spanning one boat trip)
were carried out as practice dives and hence no
data were recorded. Due to the participation in
multiple dives by some divers and the potential
for data collection to disrupt the schedules of
tourism operations, survey data were collected
during eight of the fourteen boat trips.

Map 1: Return trip from South West Rocks jetty to Fish Rock.

DOES GREY NURSE SHARK TOURISM PROMOTE BIOCENTRIC VALUES? 33

The survey design was adapted from Chris-
tensen et al’s (2007) study on the effective-
ness of a whale watching education program
in Oregon, Canada, as it documented short-
term biocentric values and knowledge of tourists
and was considered an appropriate model. Par-
ticipants’ answers to pre dive surveys were
compared with post dive surveys to determine if
grey nurse shark dives had a significant impact
upon participants’ knowledge and perceptions
of the marine environment and sharks (both
generally and in relation to grey nurse sharks
in particular). In addition to this, educational
talks (of approximately five to ten minutes
in length) were provided by the researcher to
tourists of alternating trips. Educational talks
were conducted on alternate boat trips in order
to assess the effect these talks had on improv-
ing biocentrism and knowledge within partici-
pants. Educational talks provided information
regarding grey nurse shark biology, distribution,
population status, conservation status and man-
agement strategies, and were delivered utilising
visual aids (laminated A4 sheets). Comparisons
were then made between the post dive survey
responses of those whom were provided with an
educational talk and those whom were not.

To assess the biocentrism of tourists the
following statements were included in the survey
as adapted from Christensen et al. (2007):

- The marine environment requires our protection.

- It is important to protect the marine
environment.

- It is important to protect sharks.

- It is important to spend money to protect sharks.

- Sharks are important for Australia.

- Sharks need a healthy marine environment to
survive.

- My daily actions affect sharks.

- My daily actions affect the marine environment.

Participants were required to assign a score
for each of the eight statements based on
a scale of 1 to 5 where 1=strongly dis-
agree, 2=—disagree, 3= undecided, 4= agree,
5 =strongly agree (Musa 2002, Liick 2003, Fin-
kler & Higham 2004, Christensen et al. 2007,
Morris et al. 2007, Powell & Ham 2008). There-
fore, the maximum overall score a tourist could
achieve for the biocentric section of the survey
was 40. For analyses purposes, mean response

scores of 1—2.9 were considered non-biocentric,

3-3.9 represented neutral values and attitudes,

and mean scores of 4—5 were deemed biocentric.

Specific questions relating to grey nurse
sharks were also included and participants were
asked to answer either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Participants
were presented with the following seven know]l-
edge questions and statements:

- Grey nurse sharks are a protected species.

- Grey nurse sharks are an endangered species.

- Is the population size of grey nurse sharks at an
acceptable level in eastern Australia for their
long-term survival?

- Are grey nurse sharks a threat to humans?

- Can a tourist pursue grey nurse sharks?

- Can a tourist diver touch a grey nurse shark?

- Are sharks an important part of the marine
environment?

Correct answers were assigned a score of 1
and incorrect answers a score of 0, therefore, an
overall result of 7 equated to a maximum score
of 100% for the knowledge section of the survey.
Tourists whose mean responses ranged from 0—
0.4 were deemed to possess poor knowledge
of grey nurse sharks and responses of 0.5—1.0
represented good grey nurse shark knowledge.

Statistical Analysis

For both aspects of this study the mean biocen-
tric and knowledge responses of each diver were
used as indicators of biocentrism and knowledge
levels of tourists.

Both biocentric and knowledge pre and post
grey nurse shark dive survey responses were
compared using Wilcoxon paired-sample tests
(Zar 1974).

The post grey nurse shark dive biocentric
and knowledge survey responses of tourists pro-
vided with an educational talk and those whom
were not were compared using Mann-Whitney
tests (Zar 1974).

RESULTS

A total of 27 dives (N=118 divers) spanned
across 15 boat trips and total time spent in the
field was 66.8 hours. The mean number of divers
that participated in a grey nurse shark dive
expedition (including the researcher and dive

34 SMITH et al.

operation employees) was 8.4 (standard devia-
tion = 2.8 divers, range 3-12 divers, n= 14 boat
trips). Of those divers presented with the option
to participate in the survey study (N=55) a
total of 47 took part. (76.4%). Of these 47 sur-
veys, the pre and post dive knowledge responses
of three survey pairs could not be compared
as some questions were not completed. When
comparing the responses of tourists whom were
provided with an educational talk with those
whom were not the post dive knowledge sur-
vey responses of two participants could not be
utilised for the same reason. The proportion of
surveyed tourists exposed to an educational talk
(tourists of four boat trips) was 57.4% (N = 27
divers). The proportion of those not provided
with an educational talk (tourists of four boat
trips) equaled 42.6% (N = 20 divers).

Comparison of Survey Responses
Before & After Grey Nurse Shark
Dive

Biocentric Statements

A Wilcoxon paired-sample test revealed that
there was a significant difference (a=0.05,
0.01<P(<338)<0.02) between the pre and post
dive responses for the biocentric survey state-
ments, as shown in Figure 1.

100 eS Pe ae COLE Le ROE AU PCNA RET LO SONI ee NER fee Meee AY 2

s8

DM

45 i

we

[4H fo OH Ae Mee het ee a De awe Sas8 ee Fe Ee ee eed
sS

o

>

oy

R

ie)

=

BS,

& 20)

O

ay

O

oH

A, 0

Decrease Increase
N=9 N=14
Biocentrism

Figure 1. Change in biocentrism in tourists

(%) post grey nurse shark dives (n = 47).

Results showed that 29.8% of tourists be-
came more biocentric in their responses after
the dive, 19.2% of tourists decreased their level
of biocentrism, and 51.1% of tourists’ answers
did not change post dive. Expanding upon
this, results in Figure 2 indicated that 83.3% of
the tourists whose responses did not alter were
already considered either completely biocentric
(29.2%) or highly biocentric (54.2%); therefore |
the margin for improvement was either non-
existent or very low.

9 [lu e verlhareeae Seem |
60 ee ee ele ee ae
pe

20 5 .

Proportion of Surveyed Tourists %

iy
oa... CH LY MUUE......3

Neutral Biocentric Perfect Score

Biocentrism

Figure 2. Proportion of tourists (%) whose post
dive responses to the biocentric statements did
not alter from their pre dive responses to the
biocentric statements (n = 47).

Although results revealed a_ significant
(a=0.05) change in survey respondents’ answers
post participation in a grey nurse shark dive
(both increases and decreases in biocentrism
were detected), the total proportions of tourists
whom were considered to be non-biocentric,
neutral and biocentric remained unchanged
overall. Figure 3 indicates that whilst an
increase in the level of biocentrism was docu-
mented, 57.1% of this increase was accounted
for in pre dive biocentric tourists who further
improved their biocentrism post dive. A further
28.6% of the detected increase in biocentrism
was due to a slight improvement in biocentrism
by tourists whose responses were considered
neutral pre and post dive.

DOES GREY NURSE SHARK TOURISM PROMOTE BIOCENTRIC VALUES?

39

f 100
SX
op) Co "3 L
i oN = i:
& 80. 2 ll E 5
ET 7 ‘=p pd oO a) 6
fy
ae) rs) = = s) in os Ga 3 aS KS oN
© 60 pee vs Os ~ ee aS ee fe oy ee bes uo OO. - oe 3
S 2 2 2 3 v Il v Il BB ll v ||
amine sets aa “—
Blu to 2 St (a 8. 2S ae 2 a v & ae
een em = ra ee ES ae a eg
S Ee fo, | i ais ‘So 2 si
co) o) ov On oO 45 ong
5 oa o> 28 LB a > B os
su oe Ae econ Sc. 8 a wees. . 2 eo ce
-
a ee
3. |
o
— 0 i.
No Change Decrease | Increase
Biocentrism

Figure 3. Proportion of surveyed tourists (%) per category (i.e. neutral pre dive or
biocentric pre dive) who either experienced no change, a decrease or an increase in
biocentrism post participation in a grey nurse shark dive (n= 47).

The remaining 14.3% increase in biocen-
trism was attributed to a shift from neutral
to biocentric values within tourists (accounting
for 4% of surveyed tourists). The proportion
of tourists (4%) who experienced a shift from
neutral to biocentric values (i.e. an increase
in biocentrism) is mirrored by the proportion
of tourists (4%) who exhibited a shift from
biocentric to neutral values (i.e. a decrease in
biocentrism); hence these incidences of change
nullify each other in regard to the overall pro-
portions of neutral and biocentric tourists.

Thus, results stated that the proportions of
non-biocentric, neutral and biocentric tourists
pre and post dives did not change, as shown in
Figure 4. Prior to the dives 78.7% of tourists
were considered biocentric and this proportion
did not alter post dives, there were no (0%)
non-biocentric tourists both pre and post dives
and 21.3% of tourists remained neutral in their
responses to the biocentric survey statements.

As depicted in Figure 5, the mean responses
of tourists to 75% of the biocentric statements
were considered biocentric (i.e. equal to or
greater than a score of 4). The remaining 25% of
biocentric statements received mean responses

indicative of neutral (i.e. mean scores between
3.0-3.9) values and attitudes within tourists in
relation to the impact of their daily actions
upon sharks and the marine environment. The
degree of biocentricity in the pre and post dive
responses of tourists to 37.5% of statements
increased (i.e. ‘the marine environment requires
our protection’, ‘it is important to protect
sharks’, ‘my daily actions affect the marine
environment’); the mean response of tourists to
25% of statements decreased post dive (i.e. ‘it is
important to protect the marine environment’,
‘sharks are important for Australia’); and, the
mean response of tourists to the remaining
37.5% of biocentric statements did not alter
(i.e. ‘it is important to spend money to protect
sharks’, ‘sharks need a healthy marine envi-
ronment to survive’, ‘my daily actions affect
sharks’). Although an increase in biocentrism
was documented in the mean responses of
tourists to 37.5% of the statements, a shift from
neutral values and attitudes to biocentric views
did not occur. Similarly, whilst a decrease in
the level of biocentric responses to 25% of the
statements occurred this was not reflected in a
shift from biocentric to neutral views.

36 SMITH et al.

SS
ae
0
0

Proportion of Surveyed Tourists %

| \|

: Z Zz;
0 Te ee ey ee
| Non-biocentric Neutral

Biocentrism

Figure 4. Proportion of non-biocentric, neutral and_ biocentric
tourists (%) for pre and post grey nurse shark dives (n=47). Pre
dives Post dives

Biocentric
response

Mean Response

My daily - __

ge Bae ee ee er ee. | pete ence tee 82
oo Beles re S28 Sia. | ees oe ig OH Le
ae =o a OS | el Oe 1 eer “> | ok s oS
5 2 £98 Wo eRe BeBe |e eve peed Tiere 2
HO A uy 45: | 1 eS Py | n
a Sj le@al HIS 8S | Susy hy Brel lens 3
a, ors a+ a, 2. | Sarear ete '@ aS} Be)
= Shay Seago | S wn a = D
eH at Sal oO eo}
a, ian}
&

Biocentric Statements

Figure 5. Biocentrism of tourists’ responses pre and post dive to each biocentric statement.
Biocentrism: O-—2.9=non-biocentric, 3.0—3.9 =neutral, 4.0—-5.0 = biocentric, ME = marine
environment, n=47. The point at which responses are deemed biocentric is indicated by
the thickened black line. Pre dives Post dives ©

DOES GREY NURSE SHARK TOURISM PROMOTE BIOCENTRIC VALUES? 37

Grey Nurse Shark Knowledge Questions and
Statements

A Wilcoxon paired-sample test indicated that
there was a significant difference (a=0.05;
0.01<P(T<326)<0.02) between the pre and
post dive responses for the grey nurse shark
knowledge survey questions and statements, as
shown in Figure 6.

Results found that 20.5% of tourists experi-
enced a decrease in knowledge post dive and
9.1% of tourists became more knowledgeable
after the dive. As shown in Figure 7, 70.5%
of tourists’ levels of knowledge did not alter;
25% of tourists already possessed good levels of
grey nurse shark knowledge and a further 45.5%
obtained the correct answer to all knowledge
questions and statements, therefore the margin
for improving knowledge was either minimal or
non-existent.

Of the tourists whose knowledge decreased
after participating in a grey nurse shark dive,
22.2% were considered to have poor grey nurse
shark knowledge both pre and post dive and
77.8% were deemed knowledgeable both prior
to and after the dives. Figure 8 indicates that
a shift in tourists from good knowledge of grey

Decrease Increase

N=4

N=9

Proportion of Surveyed Tourists %

ve

Grey Nurse Shark Knowledge

Figure 6. Change in grey nurse shark knowl-
edge of tourists (%) post grey nurse shark dive
(n= 44).

nurse sharks pre dive to poor knowledge post
dive was not documented. Therefore, although
a decrease in knowledge did occur, it did not
influence the overall proportions of tourists who
possessed poor knowledge or good knowledge
pre and post dive. However, in regards to
the tourists whose knowledge increased after
participating in a grey nurse shark dive, 25%
went from having poor knowledge prior to the
dives to possessing good knowledge after the
dives, thereby accounting for the 2% increase
in the proportion of knowledgeable tourists
overall post dive as depicted in Figure 9. The
remaining 75% of tourists that experienced an
increase in grey nurse shark knowledge were
already deemed knowledgeable pre dive and so
this result did not impact upon the overall
proportions of tourists with poor or good knowl-
edge.

Therefore, although the proportion of
tourists whose knowledge decreased (20.5%)
post participation in a grey nurse shark dive
was greater than that of those whose knowl-
edge increased (9.1%), the overall proportion of
tourists possessing good knowledge increased by
2% post participation in a grey nurse shark dive,
as indicated in Figure 9.

xe

op)

Os sce

: 19 eee

FA

ge, : ct

S60 Good Perfect

if knowledge score

2 N=11 N = 20

° :

< :

aS)

20>

S

=

a

a 9. : a
Grey Nurse Shark Knowledge

Figure 7. Proportion of tourists (%) whose

post dive responses to the knowledge questions
and statements did not alter from their pre
dive responses to the knowledge questions and
statements (n= 44).

38

SMITH et al.

2 100 eas Bea Er er ae SOS EI 0 3 hae hn in eine dices tetades. Ssdictstecsistenaxcct Sey Bins a esses tess CaamscekesusastiReagh sea oh actus eNO do eaten eases spesdisiiavencadhtead: Eee ee ae :
&X :
D
45 :
DM :
2 oO
© | o een © a & 20 © o» g
PF Be ee Ra Bo Ag ASR A. oS
ae ee | gol cs ieee lhe |
SS 60 eececccssecseer = Zz, seeeaecees, eee = Zi ste eeneeenereseer so 7, teaereesees v ° Tl deeeesenees = 2S oeeee ae Q aaese Oo z, ceeeeseaswaseaes
se BAAS 0 BT) = © me oe 2 SE ee om = ©
5 BS B SE ia Seon ae eee Be
Fit sheateen 63 £5 28e 88 88h a3

4O per icare vevssseseneeee GI GGG GG ooneeccnnnne tig as ge uw po, a, ee NST cis ne (©) © - MA Be pear
4 D 7 D 2} D o0 = a D
io) HO HO S fe) See HO gait Se oe
lie “upreenue emer Cen N ae ee oh
eS) A wr) Ox OO A... Bcd) Oe See
Bis 20 © sicacuasacrobck ot chvvee caves codisbete vcvaveasteadecs cee SOOT ans oa sncaoc at eae cd sabe ans cukecoacan tebe eben ee ne ene ee Te as sskteatsandesssesessesicoscosassessossdescqasssscussasyastésescassaraseceisessasasasevesatscasseseassitedtemrenaitaerettttarintate ae eae ea aR RTT Tae OTR ee ee TS
e)
a
Ea
at | ee Oe Ure lm lLUEEEEEE ee

No change | Decrease Increase |

Grey Nurse Shark Knowledge

Figure 8. Proportion of surveyed tourists (%) per category (i.e. poor knowledge pre dive
or good knowledge pre dive) who either experienced no change, a decrease or an increase
in knowledge post participation in a grey nurse shark dive (n= 44).

~~
n
=
pce
3 80
a
a = a
P 60 ab Rad. ae ° sssisetish tcacihsiee teats “I cians Saad Cossesnictins 6s ed ge MOM REE sf 2CocoP Po Mace ee 1 etek ae
a Zi a a
A AO ae etait ares s ee dle 2 Bolt Ae
e) o ne .
| © D Q
a oO °
a A a a
0 I
2
=
Oo
7

Poor knowledge | Good knowledge
Grey Nurse Shark Knowledge

Figure 9. Proportion of tourists (%) possessing poor
knowledge and good knowledge pre and post grey nurse
shark dive (n= 44).

DOES GREY NURSE SHARK TOURISM PROMOTE BIOCENTRIC VALUES? 39

The proportions of tourists who answered
the knowledge questions and statements cor-
rectly pre dive and post dive is presented in
Figure 10 (the phrase ‘grey nurse shark’ is
abbreviated to ‘GNS’ in Figure 10). For 28.6%
of the knowledge questions and statements the
provision of the correct response increased post
dive (i.e. ‘grey nurse sharks are an endangered
species’, ‘can a tourist diver touch a grey nurse
shark?’); for a further 28.6% of knowledge
questions a decrease in the provision of correct
answers was documented (i.e. ‘is the population
size of grey nurse sharks at an acceptable level in
eastern Australia for their long term survival?’,
‘are grey nurse sharks a threat to humans?’);
therefore, for the remaining 42.9% of the knowl-
edge questions and statements the proportion
of tourists who responded correctly did not
alter post grey nurse shark dive (i.e. ‘grey nurse
sharks are a protected species’, ‘can a tourist
pursue grey nurse sharks?’, ‘are sharks an im-
portant part of the marine environment?’).

Figure 10 indicates that 80% or more
tourists provided correct responses both pre
dive and post dive to all but 1 of the knowl-

OO
=)

p)
a)

Proportion of Surveyed Tourists
i)
S

who Provided Correct Answer %
=
Ss

(on)

edge questions and statements (i.e. 85.7% of
questions and statements). The proportion of
tourists who answered the remaining question
(i.e. ‘is the population size of grey nurse sharks
at an acceptable level in eastern Australia for
their long term survival?’) correctly pre dive
was 66% and this amount decreased to 59% post
dive.

Comparison of Post Grey Nurse
Shark Dive Survey Responses of
those given an Educational Talk &
those whom were not

Biocentric Statements

A Mann-Whitney test found that there
was not a_ significant difference (a=0.05;
0.01<P(U<317.5)<0.02) between the biocen-
tric survey responses of tourists whom were
provided with an educational talk and those
whom were not. Therefore, the null hypothesis
that the provision of educational talks does
not improve biocentrism within tourists post
participation in a grey nurse shark dive should
be accepted.

Knowledge Questions and Statements

Figure 10. Proportions of tourists (%) who answered knowledge questions and statements

correctly pre dive and post dive.

GNS = grey nurse sharks, ME = marine environment,

n=44. The point at which responses are deemed biocentric is indicated by the thickened

Post dives

black line. Pre dives *

AO SMITH et al.

Educational talk

Post Dive Grey Nurse Shark Knowledge

Figure 11. Knowledge of surveyed tourists pro-
vided with an educational talk and of those
not provided with an educational talk (n=45,

GNS = grey nurse shark).

Knowledge Questions & Statements

Mann-Whitney test results indicated that
there was a significant difference (a=0.05;
0.01<P(U>494)<0.02) between the post dive
knowledge survey answers of those present for
an educational talk and of those who were
not. Figure 11 (the phrase ‘grey nurse shark’
is abbreviated to ‘GNS’ in Figure 11) shows
that 100% of tourists that were provided with
an educational talk possessed good grey nurse
shark knowledge post dive. Of the tourists
whom were not provided with an educational
talk 89.5% were considered knowledgeable post
dive and 10.5% were deemed to have poor grey
nurse shark knowledge. Therefore, the provision
of an educational talk appeared to increase the
proportion of tourists who had a good level of
grey nurse shark knowledge by 10.5%.

The mean response to the knowledge ques-
tions and statements post dive of tourists pro-
vided with an educational talk and of those
whom were not are presented in Figure 12.

It can be seen from Figure 12 that the
mean response to the knowledge questions and

100 SR NES SM OE A: Lele Mt Ede 0 ns PN A ay ee a be Ye, Rae
KS H
a a 7
5 80 ie een Z, LLL i Z, eee
a ee &
= 60 i sin i 2 oO etaheseves
© 5 S
2 S =
oe | aS. a
7 AO fovrnnre 2 LE. i ie Me
c One 0) C5
< 8 a)
5 20 | £ hi
OQ,
O
H
Ph, 6

No educational talk

Mean Post Dive Response
os)
=

Provision of Pre Dive Educational Talk

Figure 12. Mean post dive survey response
to knowledge questions and statements of
tourists provided with an educational talk
and of those whom were not provided with
an educational talk (0-0.4= poor knowl-
edge, 0.5-1 = good knowledge, n= 45).

statements of tourists whom were provided with
an educational talk was 0.9, which indicates
a greater level of grey nurse shark knowledge
compared with tourists whom were not provided
with an educational talk, whose mean response
was 0.8. Hence, a 12.5% increase in the mean
post dive response of those tourists whom were
provided with an educational talk was docu-
mented.

DISCUSSION

Nature-based tourism has the potential
to benefit conservation by improving pro-
environmental attitudes and environmental
knowledge within tourists (Ballantyne et al.
2008, Zeppel & Muloin 2008). In addition,
it has been found that provision of education
during nature-based tourism experiences can
further enhance these benefits (Hughes &
Saunders 2005, Christensen et al. 2007, Powell
& Ham 2008, Zeppel & Muloin 2008). Results
of this study indicated that both positive
and negative influences were exerted on the

DOES GREY NURSE SHARK TOURISM PROMOTE BIOCENTRIC VALUES? Al

biocentrism and knowledge of tourists (short-
term) who participated in a grey nurse shark
dive at Fish Rock, New South Wales. Although
an increase in biocentrism was documented
post dive, the majority of this improvement
occurred in tourists that were deemed biocentric
pre dive. Furthermore, the decreases in
biocentrism reported only occurred within
pre dive biocentric tourists. In addition, the
improvements to and decline of knowledge
that were documented occurred largely within
tourists that already possessed a substantial
degree of grey nurse shark knowledge prior to
their dive experience. Therefore, it is necessary
to discuss current results holistically (rather
than focusing on individual results in isolation
from each other) and the probable reasons
behind them to prevent their misinterpretation.

Previous research (Hughes & Saunders
2005, Christensen et al. 2007) investigating
the influence of nature-based tourism on pro-
environmental attitudes and knowledge within
tourists has suggested that prepossession of
such views and values may be partially (if
not wholly) responsible for the apparent lack
of sway that tourism has in increasing pro-
environmental attitudes within participants.
The same could account for the minimal (al-
though significant) increases in knowledge doc-
umented in this and Morris et al.’s (2007) study.
In addition, it has been surmised that whilst the
ability of tourists to recall and relay facts pre-
sented to them during a nature-based tourism
experience may indicate improvements in their
short-term knowledge, it does not necessarily
signify that they personally agreed with the in-
formation or that the knowledge gained in turn
positively influenced their attitudes towards
the target species and conservation (Hughes &
Saunders 2005). ‘Tourists’ perceptions of the
target species, environment and the tourism
experience itself may also influence the level
of knowledge attained from participation in
nature-based tourism activities. Hence, in situ-
ations where educational resources supplement
the nature-based tourism experience, the con-
tent and quality of the resources (whether they
be presentations, informal talks, interpretation
materials or otherwise) appear to be of utmost

importance to ensure that the desired infor-
mation and messages (relating to management
guidelines, conservation and so forth) are effec-
tively communicated to tourists (Mayes et al.
2004, Ballantyne et al. 2008, Zeppel & Muloin
2008, Mayes & Richins 2009). In order to fa-
cilitate maximum conservation benefits through
the provision of education and to prevent the
potential for further misconceptions to arise if
tourists seek additional information from other
sources (for example, the media, documentaries,
books and so forth), it is proposed that the in-
formation provided during tours is consistently
reviewed and updated to ensure its accuracy.

Whilst biocentrism increased in 29.8% of
survey participants a large proportion (57.1%)
of this improvement occurred in tourists pre-
viously deemed biocentric prior to the dive
experience. In a study on a whale watching
education program in Oregon, Canada, Chris-
tensen et al. (2007) noted that the increase
in biocentrism of tourists who participated in
the program compared with those who did not
may have been attributed to the likelihood that
people with strong existing biocentric attitudes
were more likely to participate in and be more
receptive to the program compared with those
of weaker biocentric orientations. Similarly,
Morris et al. (2007) concluded that although the
manatee knowledge of boaters who participated
in a Manatee Watch outreach program was
quite high, boaters who did not participate in
the program also exhibited a high degree of
knowledge. This notion is of great relevance
to the results of the current study. Whilst
the overall proportion of biocentric tourists did
not increase as a result of participating in
a grey nurse shark dive nor was an increase
documented as a result of the provision of
an educational talk (i.e. educational talks did
not significantly influence biocentric views), an
increase in biocentrism was detected. This was
due to the large proportion (78.7%) of tourists
who were already deemed to be biocentric prior
to the dives; hence whilst their level of exist-
ing biocentrism could improve, only 21.3% of
tourists had the potential to shift from neutral
views and values to biocentric attitudes. Fur-
thermore, 14.9% of tourists obtained a ‘perfect

42 SMITH et al.

score’ of biocentrism (i.e. answered ‘strongly
agree’ to all eight biocentric statements) pre
dive and so no improvement could take place.
Similarly, although a small proportion
(9.1%) of tourists experienced an improvement
to knowledge post dive, 75% of these tourists
were already deemed to possess good levels of
grey nurse shark knowledge prior to the dives.
A total of 93% of participants were considered
to hold good grey nurse shark knowledge pre
dive experience, so the group of tourists most in
need of knowledge improvements (i.e. those with
poor grey nurse shark knowledge) represented
only 7% of the grey nurse shark divers. In light
of these results, it is suggested that the premise
that nature-based tourism presents real bene-
fits to conservation by encouraging people to
become more environmentally aware, concerned
and knowledgeable may not be entirely valid
as it appears that those likely to participate in
such activities generally already possess these
qualities: a finding supported by the results of
other studies (Christensen et al. 2007, Morris
et al. 2007). Hence, the conservation benefits
to be gained from improving the biocentrism
and knowledge of participants via nature-based
tourism may be minimal. It is therefore sug-
gested that in order for conservation to derive
maximum benefit from positive shifts in bio-
centrism, non-biocentric and neutral individuals
need to be the target demographic. However,
the feasibility of this is dubious as such individ-
uals would require not only a preparedness to
finance such an experience but also a willingness
to participate in an activity that may not
particularly appeal to them (due to the possible
absence of a certain degree of interest in the
environment and the focal species).
Furthermore, a significant increase in the
proportion of tourists with good grey nurse
shark knowledge was detected in tourists pro-
vided with an educational talk compared with
those whom were not. The inclusion of the
correct responses to the knowledge survey ques-
tions and statements in the educational talks
and the use of visual aids containing im-
portant facts may have prompted the reten-
tion and recollection of this information post
dive (Hughes & Saunders 2005), regardless
of whether tourists personally believed in the

validity of them. This is reflected in results,
which indicated that improved knowledge does
not parlay into an improvement in overall bio-
centrism.

Lastly, when viewing each knowledge ques-
tion individually it becomes apparent that the
perceptions developed by tourists during their
dive experience may be an important factor
determining the accuracy of their responses.
For example, a 7% decrease in the proportion
of tourists who correctly answered the question
‘is the population size of grey nurse sharks
at an acceptable level in eastern Australia for
their long term survival?’ was documented.
Prior to the dives, many tourists may have
been informed (via media, scientific literature,
educational talks as a part of the current
study, or elsewhere) that the east Australian
population of grey nurse sharks consists of
approximately 300-500 individuals and is a crit-
ically endangered stock (Environment Australia
2002). However, during their dive experience
some tourists may have encountered a large
amount (counts of 30 or more individuals were
not uncommon) of grey nurse sharks in the
one area (i.e. Fish Rock) which could have led
to the false assumption that the population
status of grey nurse sharks is not as low as
they previously believed it to be. Further
support for this notion exists in the post dive
responses of tourists to the question ‘are grey
nurse sharks a threat to humans?’ After
participating in a grey nurse shark dive the
proportion of tourists who incorrectly believed
that grey nurse sharks are a threat to humans
increased by 5%. Again, this may be attributed
to tourists’ visual perceptions of grey nurse
sharks (i.e. large, strong animals with sharp,
protruding teeth) when viewed in close proxim-
ity and the associated connotations. Therefore,
the potential for tourists to adopt inaccurate
perceptions as a result of their experience must
be identified so that such inconsistencies are
demystified via education programs or interpre-
tation resources both pre and post nature-based
tourism experience. In addition, it is of utmost
importance to evaluate such programs to ensure
that the content conveys important information
and assists in the development of appropriate
perceptions of the target species.

DOES GREY NURSE SHARK TOURISM PROMOTE BIOCENTRIC VALUES? 43

Future Management

In light of the potential for incorrect percep-
tions to cause a decline in the knowledge of
tourists, it is clear that the content and qual-
ity of educational and interpretation resources
are important factors when assessing the sus-
tainability of nature-based tourism endeavours.
Specifically in relation to the grey nurse shark
dive industry at Fish Rock, it is important
that tour operations clarify with tourists that
whilst they may encounter a large number of
sharks during their dive experience, Fish Rock is
an identified critical habitat site (Environment
Australia 2002) and thereby does not repre-
sent an accurate portrayal of grey nurse shark
populations elsewhere along the east coast of
Australia. In addition, such resources need
to be developed in situations where they are
currently absent.

Further research of the extent to which
nature-based tourism activities positively influ-
ence the pro-environmental attitudes of tourists
(and hence, benefit conservation) is required
before industry allowances are made based upon
this assumption. This is particularly pertinent
when allowances are made for tourism settings
of which the focal species is critically endan-
gered. In addition, research investigating the
causal links between improved knowledge and
biocentrism within tourists is recommended.

CONCLUSION

This research demonstrated that nature-based
tourism has the capacity to both promote and
hinder pro-environmental attitudes and improve
knowledge within tourists. It is probable
that greater increases in both biocentrism and
knowledge were not documented due to the
high proportion of tourists whom were already
considered biocentric and knowledgeable prior
to their dive experience; hence, the scope for
improvement was narrow.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support
of Victoria University and of Earthwatch for
partially funding this research. Special thanks

are extended to Jon Cragg, Simon Latta &
Larry Anderson at Fish Rock Dive Centre for
their support in the field. Map 1 was kindly
prepared by Bruce Welch, Royal Society of
NSW.

REFERENCES

Ballantyne, R., Packer, J. & Hughes, K. 2008,
‘Tourists’ support for conservation messages
and sustainable management practices in
wildlife tourism experiences’, Tourism Man-
agement, in press, corrected proof.

Boissonneault, M., Gladstone, W., Scott, P.
& Cushing, N., 2005, ‘Grey Nurse Shark
Human Interactions and Portrayals: A Study
of Newspaper Portrayals of the Grey Nurse
Shark from 1969-2003’, Electronic Green
Journal, No. 22, p. 3.

Christensen, A., Rowe, S. & Needham, M.D.
2007, ‘Value Orientations, Awareness of Con-
sequences, and Participation in a Whale
Watching Education Program in Oregon’,
Human Dimensions of Wildlife, Vol. 12, No.
4, pp. 289-293.

Des Jardins, J.R. 2001, Environmental Ethics:
An Introduction to Environmental Philoso-
phy, 3rd edn, Wadsworth/Thomson Learn-
ing, Belmont, California.

Environment Australia 2002, Recovery Plan for
the Grey Nurse Shark (Carcharias taurus) in
Australia, Commonwealth of Australia. ISBN
0 642 54788 2.

Finkler, W. & Higham, J. 2004, ‘The Human
Dimensions of Whale Watching: An Analysis
Based on Viewing Platforms’, Human Dimen-
sions of Wildlife, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 103-117.

Higham, J.E.S., Bejder, L. & Lusseau, D. 2009,
‘An integrated and adaptive management
model to address the long-term sustainability
of tourist interactions with cetaceans’, Envi-
ronmental Conservation, Vol. 4, No. 35, pp.
294-302.

Hughes, M. & Saunders, A.M. 2005, ‘Inter-
pretation, Activity Participation, and Envi-
ronmental Attitudes of Visitors to Penguin
Island, Western Australia’, Society 3 Natural
Resources, Vol. 18, No. 7, pp. 611-624.

44 SMITH et al.

Kessler, M. 2005, ‘Rear-guard action for the
innocent grey nurse’, Ecos, No. 128, pp. 35.
Lick, M. 2003, ‘Education on marine mam-
mal tours as agent for conservation: but do
tourists want to be educated?’ Ocean &
Coastal Management, Vol. 46, No. 9, 10, pp.

943-956.

Mayes, G.J. & Richins H.J. 2009, ‘Dolphin
watch tourism: ‘Two differing examples of
sustainable practices and pro-environmental
outcomes’, Tourism in Marine Environments,
in press.

Mayes, G.J., Dyer, P.K. & Richins, H.J. 2004,
‘Dolphin-human interaction: Changing pro-
environmental attitudes, beliefs, behaviours
and intended actions of participants through
management and interpretation programs’,
Annals of Leisure Research, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp.
34-53.

Morris, J., Jacobson, S. & Flamm, R. 2007,
‘Lessons from an Evaluation of a Boater
Outreach Program for Manatee Protection’,
Environmental Management, Vol. 40, No. 4,

pp. 596-602.
Musa, G. 2002, ‘Sipadan: a SCUBA-diving
paradise: an analysis of tourism impact,

diver satisfaction and tourism management’,

Tourism Geographies, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 195—
209.

Powell, R.B. & Ham, S.H. 2008, ‘Can Eco-
tourism Interpretation Really Lead to Pro-
Conservation Knowledge, Attitudes and Be-
haviour? Evidence from the Galapagos Is-
lands’, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Vol.
16, No. 4, pp. 467-489.

Stow, A., Zenger, K, Briscoe, D., Gillings,
M., Peddemors, V., Otway, N. & Harcourt,
R. 2006, ‘Isolation and genetic diversity of
endangered grey nurse shark ( Carcharias tau-
rus) populations’, Biology Letters, Vol. 2, No.
2, pp. 308-311.

Wilson, C. & Tisdell, C. 2003, ‘Conservation
and Economic Benefits of Wildlife-Based Ma-
rine Tourism: Sea Turtles and Whales as Case
Studies’, Human Dimensions of Wildlife, Vol.
8, No. 1, pp. 49-58.

Zar, J.H. 1974, Biostatistical Analysis,
Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New
Jersey.

Zeppel, H. & Muloin, S. 2008, ‘Conservation
Benefits of Interpretation on Marine Wildlife
Tours’, Human Dimensions of Wildlife, Vol.
13, No. 4, pp. 280-294.

Kirby Smith

School of Engineering & Science

Victoria University PO Box 14428

MCMC 8001 Victoria, Australia

Primary email: kirby.smith1@live.vu.edu.au
Secondary email: kirbysmith84@hotmail.com

(Manuscript received Oct. 2009, accepted Nov. 2009)

Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Vol. 142, p. 45-45, 2009

ISSN 0035-9173/09/020045-1 $4.00/1

Thesis Abstract: Towards a New Philosophy of
Engineering: Structuring the Complex Problems
from the Sustainability Discourse

DONALD HECTOR

Abstract of a Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The University of Sydney.

This dissertation considers three broad is-
sues which emerge from the sustainability dis-
course. First is the nature of the discourse
itself, particularly the underlying philosophical
positions which are represented. Second, is the
nature of the highly complex types of problem
which the discourse exposes. Third is whether
the engineering profession, as it is practised cur-
rently, is adequate to deal with such problems.

The sustainability discourse exposes two dis-
tinct, fundamentally irreconcilable philosophi-
cal positions. The first, “sustainable develop-
ment”, considers humanity to be privileged in
relation to all other species and ecosystems. It
is only incumbent upon us to look after the
environment to the extent to which it is in our
interests to do so. The second, “sustainability”,
sees humanity as having no special moral priv-
ilege and recognises the moral status of other
species, ecosystems, and even wilderness areas.
Thus, sustainability imposes upon us a moral
obligation to take their status into account and
not to degrade or to destroy them. These
two conflicting positions give rise to extremely
complex problems. An innovative taxonomy of
problem complexity has been developed which
identifies three broad categories of problem. Of
particular interest in this dissertation is the
most complex of these, referred to here as the
Type 3 problem. The Type 3 problem recog-
nises the systemic complexity of the problem
situation but also includes differences of the do-
main of interests as a fundamental, constituent
part of the problem itself. Hence, established
systems analysis techniques and reductionist
approaches do not work. The domain of in-
terests will typically have disparate ideas and
positions, which may be entirely irreconcilable.

The dissertation explores the development
of philosophy of science, particularly in the last
70 years. It is noted that, unlike the philosophy
of science, the philosophy of engineering has not
been influenced by developments of critical the-

ory, cultural theory, and postmodernism, which
have had significant impact in late 20th-century
Western society. ‘This is seen as a constraint
on the practice of engineering. Thus, a set
of philosophical principles for sustainable engi-
neering practice is developed. Such a change
in the philosophy underlying the practice of
engineering is seen as necessary if engineers are
to engage with and contribute to the resolution
of Type 3 problems. Two particular challenges
must be overcome if Type 3 problems are to
be satisfactorily resolved. First, issues of belief,
values, and morals are central to this problem
type and must be included in problem consider-
ation. Second, the problem situation is usually
so complex that it challenges the capacity of
human cognition to deal with it. Consequently,
extensive consideration is given to cognitive and
behavioural psychology, in particular to choice,
judgement and decision-making in uncertainty.

A novel problem-structuring approach is
developed on three levels. A set philosophical
foundation is established; a theoretical frame-
work, based on general systems theory and
established behavioural and cognitive psycho-
logical theory, is devised; and a set of tools is
proposed to model Type 3 complex problems as
a dynamic systems. The approach is different
to other systems approaches, in that it enables
qualitative exploration of the system to plausi-
ble, hypothetical disturbances.

The problem-structuring approach is ap-
plied in a case study, which relates to the
development of a water subsystem for a major
metropolis (Sydney, Australia). The technique
is also used to critique existing infrastructure
planning processes and to propose an alterna-
tive approach.

Dr Donald Hector, Grassick SSG Pty Ltd
http: //www.grassick.com.au

Email: dchectorQ@grassick.com.au

Phone: +61 2 9484 9007

Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Vol. 142, p. 46-47, 2009

ISSN 0035-9173/09/020046-2 $4.00/1

Thesis Abstract: Geological and Geophysical
Evaluation and Interpretation of the Blantyre
Sub-basin, Darling Basin, New South Wales

MOHAMED KHALIFA

Abstract of a Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy,
University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

This thesis presents a study of the Blantyre
Sub-basin, which covers an area of approxi-
mately 14,000 square kilometres in the cen-
tral part of the Darling Basin, western New
South Wales, extending from latitude 31°55 °
to 32°45° South and from longitude 143°00°
to 144°10° East. A large amount of geological
information and geophysical data have been
evaluated to carry out a regional study of the
Blantyre Sub-basin, with the purpose of recon-
structing its stratigraphy, sedimentology and
structural evolution. The study has followed
an integrated approach, using lithostratigraphy,
chronostratigraphy, sedimentary lithofacies, re-
gional tectonic elements, gravity, seismic pro-
files and wireline logs, as well as core, cuttings
and outcrop data, to evaluate the Devonian
sequence. This study demonstrates the use
of seismic cross sections to assist in the in-
terpretation of stratigraphic successions. In
addition, the analysis of lithofacies generated
from well studies has been used to support the
interpretation of the subsurface geology from
the seismic data. The study involved three main
approaches.

Firstly, synthetic seismograms (one-
dimensional) were constructed from the avail-
able well data and used to compare the well
geology to the seismic response at the well
locations. The results were used to identify
the primary reflector interfaces, to confirm
the stratigraphic boundaries, and to identify
possible multiple reflections in the seismic
data. Application of the synthetic seismogram
technique in this study has been shown to
be an effective tool in linking well logs to
seismic data. A new stratigraphic correlation
of the Winduck, Snake Cave and Ravendale
Intervals has been suggested for the Darling

Basin. The stratigraphic boundaries of the
intervals were defined at marked changes
in well log characteristics, and the depth
estimates of the boundaries were derived
from the well log information (especially the
data for Mount Emu-1, Blantyre-1, Booligal
Creek-1, Booligal Creek-2 and Kewell East-1).
Seismic cross-sections were constructed as an
extension of the synthetic seismograms, and
involved modelling of the whole time section
using the well data as control. They were
used to identify the geometry of the key
reflectors, and to study the vertical and lateral
variations in the key stratigraphic horizons.
The horizons recognized in this study ranged
from the top of the undifferentiated Proterozoic
complex/Ordovician sediment? to the base
of the undifferentiated Cenozoic sediments,
but the main part of the study was focused
on the Devonian sequence of the Winduck
Interval and the Mulga Downs Group (Snake
Cave and Ravendale Intervals). The seismic
cross-sections were used to map the variations
in structure and thickness of the Devonian
sequence, and also of the overlying Upper
Carboniferous or Permian sediments. They
also provided indications of seismic features
such as changes in amplitude at the tops
of basement highs, and pinch-out of some
stratigraphic horizons (e.g. Winduck, Snake
Cave and Ravendale Intervals) when traced in
the seismic sections.

Secondly, sedimentological analysis was ap-
plied, using lithologic samples (cores and cut-
tings), petrographic studies, wireline-log and
seismic profile information, to aid in the de-
velopment of a geologic model for the Mulga
Downs Group in the Blantyre Sub-basin. Based
on its geometric pattern and internal lithofacies

distribution, the Mulga Downs Group displays,
both in vertical and lateral sections, three differ-
ent lithofacies successions. The lower part of the
Mulga Downs Group (Snake Cave Interval) is a
succession mainly composed of braided fluvial
and meandering fluvial lithofacies, with minor
fluvial-shallow lacustrine complex lithofacies
and the upper part of the Mulga Downs Group
(Ravendale Interval) contains braided fluvial
and meandering fluvial lithofacies passing up-
wards into estuarine tidal channel deposits and
a nearshore lithofacies complex contempora-
neous with a near shore braided-delta plain
complex lithofacies. Seismic facies analysis was
also applied to some of the seismic profiles,
comparing well log observation with reflection
configuration and other seismic characteristics
for the Winduck, Snake Cave and Ravendale
Intervals. The seismic facies patterns show
continuous, semicontinuous and discontinuous
reflections with moderate amplitude and high
to moderate frequency. The unit identified from
the well data can also be recognised in the seis-
mic profiles, with features such as low-angle and
high-angle clinoforms, parallel and sub-parallel
reflections and a few hummocky/wavy reflec-
tions indicating scour or secondary channel-

A7

fills, shallow channel-fills, and small-scale fluvial
channels.

Thirdly, a three-dimensional geological
model was developed from the seismic data to
map out the geometry of the key reflectors,
and hence the structure and thickness of the
Winduck, Snake Cave and Ravendale Intervals
in the areas where these intervals have been
preserved. This model has also better defined
the Wilcannia High, and two smaller highs
around the Mount Emu-l and Snake Flat-1
wells. The results have also been compared with
the gravity contour map of the area, to further
describe the relationships between the various
lithostratigraphic units.

Isochore maps for each lithostratigraphic
(in two-way travel time) have been compared
to the travel-time structure contour patterns,
especially for the Winduck and Snake Cave
Intervals, to identify any thickening and thin-
ning associated with structural development.
Additional seismic cross-sections were also con-
structed to assist the analysis process, further
investigating relations between the stratigraphy,
sub-basin geometry, and the development of
complex structures within the study area.

Mohamed Khalifa B.Sc., PG.DipSci., M.Sc., Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer (Petroleum Geoscientist / Seismic Stratigrapher)

Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS — Perak, Malaysia

Email: mohamed20au@Qyahoo.com

1. Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS,

Bandar Seri Iskandar, 31750 Tronoh, Perak, Malaysia.
2. School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences,
University of New South Wales, Sydney NSW 2052, Australia.

3. Department of Geology, Faculty of Science,

7th April University, PO Box 16418, Zawia, Libya.

Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Vol. 142, p. 48-48, 2009

ISSN 0035-9173/09/020048-1 $4.00/1

Thesis Abstract: An Investigation on the Use of EGR
in a Natural Gas SI Engine

AMR ALY HASSAN IBRAHIM

Abstract of a Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy,
University of South Australia

Internal combustion engine emissions are
currently a major source of air pollution. The
harmful impact of engine emissions can be
reduced when engines are fuelled by alternatives
to petrol and diesel such as natural gas. The
use of lean burn technology in spark-ignition
engines has been dominant; however, the lean
burn technique can not economically satisfy
the increasingly restricted future emission stan-
dards particularly for NOx emissions. In this
thesis, the use of the stoichiometric air-fuel
mixture with exhaust gas recirculation (EGR)
technique in a spark ignition natural gas engine
is investigated. The aim of the research is to
optimize the key engine operating conditions
in order to obtain the lowest NO emissions ac-
companied with low fuel consumption and high
power. This is achieved via both experimental
and computer simulation research.

Experimental research was conducted using
a single-cylinder engine which was converted to
run from petrol to natural gas and modified
for EGR operation. The engine was fitted
with necessary sensors and equipment in order
to analyze the combustion process. Also, the
engine was fitted with a supercharger and an
intercooler. A computer simulation was also de-
veloped. This simulation was constructed based
on the mass and energy conservation principles
and the combustion process was analysed using
a two-zone combustion model. The computer
simulation was validated by experimental re-
sults at a wide range of operating conditions
and a very good agreement between the results
was achieved.

It was found that increasing the percentage
of EGR in the inlet mixture has a significant
effect on NO emissions. The increase of EGR

Amr Aly Hassan Ibrahim, PhD
Email: amralihi@yahoo.com

dilution in the inlet mixture from 0 to 10%
decreased NO emissions by about 70% at a
compression ratio of 10 and atmospheric inlet
conditions. The maximum percentage of EGR
dilution that can be used to achieve the lowest
NO emissions was found to be about 10, 12,
and 15% at compression ratios of 8, 10, and
12 respectively. It was also found that the
use of EGR dilution prevented surface ignition
and knock occurrence at higher inlet pressures
and compression ratios which improved engine
performance. For instance, the increase of inlet
pressure from 101 to 113kPa at a compression
ratio of 8 and EGR dilution of 10% increased
engine brake power by about 26% and decreased
engine brake specific fuel consumption by about
7%. On the other hand, the increase of
compression ratio from 8 to 12 at atmospheric
inlet conditions and an EGR dilution of 10%
increased engine brake power by about 11%
and decreased engine fuel consumption by about
10%.

When both EGR and air dilution strate-
gies were compared at the same conditions,
it was found that the EGR strategy slowed
down the combustion rate more significantly
which resulted in lower power and higher fuel
consumption compared to the use of air dilution
at the same conditions. However, when the
EGR was investigated at higher inlet pressure,
engine performance was improved. For in-
stance, employing EGR at a percentage dilution
of 15% and inlet pressure of 111 kPa resulted
in achieving equivalent fuel consumption and
about 9% increase in brake power compared to
the use of 15% air dilution at an inlet pressure
of 100 kPa.

Journal € Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Vol. 142, p. 49-49, 2009

ISSN 0035-9173/09/020049-1 $4.00/1

Scholarships

The Council of the Royal Society of NSW funds the Royal Society of New South Wales
Scholarships in order to acknowledge outstanding achievements by young researchers. Applications
are considered from PhD candidates, enrolled in a university within New South Wales, who have
completed at least two years of candidature by 30 April. There is no restriction with respect to field
of study within the sciences and up to three Scholarships will be awarded each year. Applicants
must be Australian citizens or permanent residents of Australia.

The Scholarship Awards for 2009 were presented on Wednesday, 2nd December 2009 at St. Paul’s

College, University of Sydney.

Maintaining the Genetic Diversity of
the Tasmanian Devil: Development
of Assisted Reproductive
Technologies

TAMARA KEELEY

Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of
Sydney and Taronga Conservation Society of
Australia.

The steep decline in population of the ‘Tas-
manian devil has lead to research into species
preservation through artificial insemination of
cryopreserved spermatozoa. ‘Tamara has de-
veloped methods to improve sperm viability
and motility after cryopreservation. 'Tamara’s
research also includes the study of reproductive
and stress hormones in the faeces of captive
female devils.

Molecular Interactions and Chirality

ISA CHAN
School of Chemistry, The University of New
South Wales.

Chirality, or ‘handedness’, is the structural
characteristic of a molecule that cannot be
superimposed on its mirror image. It is essential

to the proper functioning of living systems. De-
vising more efficient methods in the generation
of chirally pure compounds has been of great
interest in contemporary chemistry and benefi-
cial to many key areas of science. Isa’s current
research involves systematically revealing new
types of weak non-covalent interactions. An
alicyclic diol example will be presented, whose
structure is determined simply by the solvent
chosen for crystallisation.

Spatial Cognition and Foraging
Ecology of the Noisy Miner

DANIELLE SULIKOWSKI
Department of Brain, Behaviour and Evolution,
Macquarie University.

Danielle has investigated the spatial cogni-
tive abilities of the noisy miner bird. She found
that the natural distribution of rewards can be
used to predict the variation seen in the birds’
performance and strategies they use to complete
tasks. Danielle’s experiments were based on the
assumption that cognitive mechanisms, as the
proximate determinants of behaviour, have been
shaped by evolution, to allow animals to behave
in functionally adaptive ways.

Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Vol. 142, p. 50-52, 2009

ISSN 0035-9173/09/020050-3 $4.00/1

Biographical Memoir

Maren Krysko von Tryst
1921 — 2009

Our colleague Maren Krysko died on the
26th June 2009 and we were able to celebrate
her life at her committal on the 7th July 2009.
Maren suffered a stroke some two years before
her death, but with typical perseverance make
few compromises to her affliction. The service
was led by the Reverend Mark Schultz of the
Epping Lutheran Church. The service was
attended by people who knew her and had
worked with her throughout her very productive
life here in Australia, as well as friendships from
her many other interests.

Maren Gerda Meta Anneliese Krysko von
Tryst was born on 21st July 1921 in Hameln
in Lower Saxony, Germany. She had a younger
sister Ute, born in 1925. Her father John
Paulsen was an engineer who worked on rail-
way construction and her mother was Asta
Wahrendorf born in what is now Lithuania,
which before World War I was a thriving part
of Germany. John Paulsen was from the small
island of Fohr in the North Sea, one of the
islands in a group that are collectively known
as Friesland. Friesland is the home of sailors
and adventurers and was in early Medieval
times a powerful and influential Kingdom. The
Kingdom contained parts of modern Denmark

to the north, and modern Holland to the south.
It has another distinction it that its language
is the root from which the English language
developed.

On Amrum, the near neighbor of Fohr,
accessible by walking at low tide from Fohr, the
cemetery at the largest village Nebel contains
many Paulsens who were Ship Captains and
maritime adventurers. It was with this rich
heritage that Maren most strongly identified, an
identification that was reinforced by spending
many idyllic summers as a child on F6hr where
she established life-long friendships with her
many cousins.

It was Maren’s misfortune to be born into
‘interesting’ times. The family lived in Berlin
and she obtained her matriculation at the Studi-
enanstalt Fiirstin Bismark Schule in Charlotten-
berg in 1939. She began studies at the Technis-
che Hochschule Berlin-Charlottenberg in 1940.
At the same time she was required to work
in a lead factory until 1944, presumably on
war material production. John Paulsen was
required to work on rail projects in the east and
was considered a valued asset to war transport.
At this time the German railways were being
straightened to win time in the transport of
materials to the Eastern Front. Rail was a
strategic asset, ranking with energy production
in priority.

Maren married Vladimir Krysko in 1941.
Vladimir was an Engineering Graduate of the
Technical University. In the closing stages of the
war Maren and her husband were evacuated to
the Harz Mountains where they were ‘liberated’
by the American Army in 1945, followed by
some very difficult times in Displaced Persons
Camps. Maren and her husband were fortunate
to be considered as Berliners, as the Berlin
Airlift in 1948 had as a parallel policy the
removal by migration of excess population from
Berlin. All the Allied countries cooperated and
in 1948 Maren and Vladimir were accepted by
Australia. They became members of a select
group, the very first Germans to migrate to
Australia after World War II. The next were
the many skilled workers recruited in the period
1950-54 for the Snowy Mountains Scheme.

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS 51

In Australia Maren worked as a technical
assistant for the South Australian Department
of Mines. Maren and Vladimir’s only child Ma-
rina was born at Port Pirie in 1950. The family
moved to Sydney soon after, and Maren worked
with CSIRO in the Division of Radiophysics.
She took up her studies again at the University
of NSW. Her husband held an academic position
at the University of NSW at the same time.
She and Vladimir divorced in 1957, and later
Vladimir returned to Europe to live in England.
At a later time Marina left to study and joined
her father in England, and continues to live
there.

Maren graduated with a Bachelor of Science
majoring in Geology in 1962. She obtained a
Post Graduate Diploma in Mineral Technology
from the School of Mining Engineering UNSW
in 1965. She was employed in 1964 by the
School of Applied Geology as a Tutor and with
the School of Mining Engineering UNSW where
she was involved in post-graduate programs.

Maren had a passion for teaching and this
combined with her passion for Earth Sciences
led her to become a very respected and author-
itative figure in Earth Science education. She
was very demanding of the students, and at
the same time encouraging. She joined a select
group of University teachers who operated at
the Tutor/Demonstrator level to become the
backbone of the faculty. She eventually became
a Principal Tutor.

First year students often try a course, and
if they find it to their liking they will be
recruited into the discipline. A major factor is
the presentation of the course and the passion
and commitment of their instructors. The
University owes a debt to Maren, as she inspired
many a student to pursue Earth Sciences. She
therefore joints such indominables as Maude
McBriar who was a similar institution at Ade-
laide University in Geology, and the never-to-
be forgotten Miss Nichols at the University of
Sydney who inspired at least two generations of
Physics students. 'To be such a person is a real
achievement in itself, but Maren was even more.

In 1952 Maren was a foundation member
of the Geological Society of Australia NSW
Division. In 1963-64 she served as a council
member and treasurer. During the 1960s Maren
became involved in numerous scientific orga-
nizations such as the Association for Women
Graduates NSW Division, and the Australian
New Zealand Association for the Advancement
of Science. The contributions she made to
these organizations are well remembered, but
the most remembered and honored was _ her
involvement with the Royal Society of NSW.

It was in 1960 that Maren first joined the
Royal Society. Maren became the Honorary
Secretary (Editorial) and continued to work for
30 years in the production of the Society’s Jour-
nal. The Journal was edited and published on
time for all the time she held the position. The
fortunes of the Society hit some very low levels,
but doggedly and persistently she battled on.
At one stage it was suggested that the Society
be discontinued, but that notion was soon put
aside in the face of opposition from Maren that
can only be described as Formidable. Please
note the use of a capital F at the beginning
of the word Formidable. At one stage she
was faced with finding a home for the Society
and all its chattels, closure of the Society and
pressure to modernize the Society’s procedures.
She struggled with all, and therefore became
the champion that secured the future of the
Society, albeit changed into the functional, more
established institution that it is today. We
thank you Maren, even those of us who at times
were the focus of your wrath.

A high point in the Royal Society’s recent
history was to mount Summer Schools for High
School students. This was Maren’s special task,
and the interesting programs she put together
year after year contributed to young people
being recruited into scientific careers, and if not
so, led to take a deeper appreciation of modern
science into their non scientific callings. She
labored at the summer schools with the same
dedication and need for excellence which she
brought to her University teaching..

52 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS

On retirement Maren chose to live alone
as she had for a good part of her life, taking
pleasure from her frequent trips to visit her
daughter Marina resident in England as well
as the numerous cousins and other more dis-
tant relatives in Germany. She had a passion
for Genealogy and worked diligently on her
Frieslander family tree. She was also active in
matters of heritage, and was frequently seen on
Sunday outings with various groups on walking
tours of historic precincts around and in the
city.

My fondest memories are of this lady-with-
a-mission, who would visit us many a sunny
afternoon, we were only a few doors away, and
choose to sit on our front veranda wanting to
discuss issues that had come up in the news.
She was always very interested in local issues
and in some instances could be described as
an ‘activist’. She was always sharp and to the
point, but logical and incisive with a tendency
to become rather impatient if faced with ‘fuzzy’
logic or half considered ideas. As time passed
she talked of her personal journey, and we came
to have a deeper appreciation of the experiences
this lady had been trough. Many were unpleas-

Dr Robert A. Creelman
October 2009

ant, so we came to have an understanding of
why and who she was.

My wife was concerned that if she ever had
a medical problem, she might be not found for
a time because of her living alone. My wife
and Maren started a system that involved an
envelope in our letter box at least once a week,
and as time went by, some years in fact, we were
treated to clever little illustrations, short whim-
sical poems, and seasonally comments such as
facts about Easter and Christmas. We received
hand made Christmas and Easter cards, and my
wife was always remembered by small gifts when
she went on her trips back to Europe. That is
the way our family wants to remember Maren.
She was our friend.

Maren Krysko von Tryst was a treasured
Australian and we are grateful that she came
to live amongst us and contribute so much to
our personal lives and to our Australian way of
life. We thank her and honor a life that was
lived with passion, was lived to the full without
compromise, even unto the last.

Rest in Peace Maren, you are well remem-
bered by those who knew you.

Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Vol. 142, p. 53-54, 2009

ISSN 0035-9173/09/020053-2 $4.00/1

Biographical Memoir

Howard Hamlet Gordon McKern
1917 — 2009

Howard McKern was born on 23rd March
1917 in Mosman, Sydney. He was educated at
Newington College, Stanmore, Sydney, passing
the Leaving Certificate Examination in 1934
with First-Class Honours in Chemistry and
Geology. He obtained his Diploma in Chemistry
from the Sydney Technical College in 1942 as
well as, at the same time, studying physiology,
microbiology and botany. He was awarded the
degree of Master of Science by thesis from the
University of New South Wales in 1957.

Howard spent ten years (1936-1945) work-
ing in organic and analytical chemistry in
the Parramatta chemical laboratory of Meggitt
Ltd. eventually being promoted to Assistant
Chemist. In 1945 he joined the staff of the
Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences in Ultimo
as Head of the Museum’s Chemistry Depart-
ment directing its research on the chemistry
of essential oils. He was appointed Deputy
Director of the Museum in 1960 and remained
in this position until his retirement in 1977.

He was elected Member of the Royal Society
of New South Wales in 1943 and served as its
President in 1963. He was the author as well
as co-author of some 40 research papers (12
in the Journal and Proceedings of the Royal
Society of NSW), chiefly in the fields of the
chemistry and chemotaxonomy of essential oil-
bearing plant species. In addition to several
biographical articles on some of his predecessors
at the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences, he
contributed a chapter in the Centenary Volume
of the Royal Society of NSW on the Research
into the Volatile Oils of the Australian Flora,
1788-1967. He also published a_ biography
of his maternal grandfather ‘William Mogford
Hamlet (1850-1931), Gentleman and Scholar’,
a distinguished chemist employed in the NSW
Public Service. In recognition of his work the
Royal Society of NSW awarded him in 1968 the
Society’s Medal for Services to Science and to
the Society.

He joined the Royal Australian Chemical
Institute in 1942 and was elected Fellow in 1957.
He also was member of the University of New
South Wales Chemical Society, as well as its
President in 1960-1961, and was awarded in
1945 the Society’s George Wright Prize. He
served for many years as a member of the Es-
sential Oils Committee of Standards Australia,
including 9 years (1968-1976) as its Chairman.
He represented Australia in 1976 at the Lisbon
meeting of the Essential Oils Committee of the
International Standards Organisation where he
succeeded in blocking an attempt by Portugal
and Spain to exclude Australian eucalyptus oils
from the definition of eucalyptus oil, thus sav-
ing our eucalyptus oil industry from potential
extinction.

Howard was also an active member of sev-
eral museum oriented organisations, such as
the Museums Association of Australia (Member
1958, Associate 1974, member of Council and
two terms as President: 1974-75 and 1975—
76 and Editor of the Association’s Journal
‘Kalori’). He was also Editor of the NSW
Branch Quarterly Newsletter (1975-1977). In
1979 he was conferred the Honorary Fellowship
of the Association. He was appointed member
of the Australian Committee for Museum Staff

54 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS

Training set up under the aegis of the Australian
National Commission for UNESCO (1973); the
Board of Studies within the Faculty of Arts for
the Post-Graduate Diploma in Museum Studies
(1975); Chairman of the NSW Cultural Grants
Committee on Museums and Galleries etc. He
was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Silver
Jubilee Medal 1977 for community service.

But Howard was more than a respected
scientist and competent administrator. His
interests included music, literature, history and
art. He studied drawing, painting and drawing
under well-known teachers and exhibited his
works at a number of galleries. In 1952 he
was elected Exhibiting Member of the Royal
Art Society of NSW. His exceptional mastery of
the English language was reflected in the clarity
and style of all his writings. Howard’s language
skills also found expression in his ability to
speak fluent German.

Erich Lassak (from personal acquaintance)
and generous advice from his wife,
Mrs C. (Lollo) McKern

I remember him as a knowledgeable, courte-
ous and friendly colleague. Despite his official
function as the Museum’s Deputy Director he
found the time to take his morning tea with us
in the Museum’s chemistry laboratory, discuss
on-going projects and plan future essential oil
research projects. He loved the Australian
bush and occasionally took part in our plant
collecting trips. On such occasions his knowl-
edge of botany was of incalculable help. His
knowledge and comments on the geology and
colonial history of the areas we visited made
these trips a real treat.

His last years were bedevilled by failing
health, loss of eyesight as well as hearing and
finally cancer. He passed away on 7th June
2009, aged 92 years.

He will be remembered by all his family and
friends, like his forebear, as a ‘Gentleman and
Scholar’.

NOTICE TO AUTHORS

Manuscripts should be addressed to The Hon-
orary Secretary, Royal Society of New South
Wales, Building H47 University of Sydney NSW
2006.

Manuscripts will be reviewed by the Hon. Ed-
itor, in consultation with the Editorial Board,
to decide whether the paper will be considered
for publication in the Journal. Manuscripts
are subjected to peer review by an indepen-
dant referee. In the event of initial rejection,
manuscripts may be sent to two other referees.

Papers, other than those specially invited by
the Editorial Board on behalf of Council, will
only be considered if the content is substantially
new material which has not been published
previously, has not been submitted concurrently
elsewhere nor is likely to be published substan-
tially in the same form elsewhere. Letters to the
Editor and short notes may also be submitted
for publication.

Three, single sided, typed copies of the
manuscript (double spacing) should be submit-
ted on A4 paper.

Spelling should conform with ‘The Concise Ox-
ford Dictionary’ or ‘The Macquarie Dictionary’.
The Systéme International d’Unites (SI) is to
be used, with the abbreviations and symbols set
out in Australian Standard AS1000.

All stratigraphic names must conform with
the International Stratigraphic Guide and new
names must first be cleared with the Central
Register of Australian Stratigraphic Names,
Australian Geological Survey Organisation,
Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia. The codes
of Botanical and Zoological Nomenclature must
also be adhered to as neccessary.

The Abstract should be brief and informative.

Tables and Illustrations should be in the form
and size intended for insertion in the master
manuscript — 150mm x 200mm.

If this is not readily possible then an indication
of the required reduction (such as ‘reduce to
1/2 size’) must be clearly stated. Tables and
illustrations should be numbered consecutively
with Arabic numerals in a single sequence and
each must have a caption.

Half-tone illustrations (photographs) should be
included only when essential and should be
presented on glossy paper.

Maps, diagrams and graphs should generally
not be larger than a single page. However,
larger figures may be split and printed across
two opposite pages. ‘The scale of maps or
diagrams must be given in bar form.

References are to be cited in the text by giving
the author’s name and year of publication.
References in the Reference List should be listed
alphabetically by author and then chronologi-
cally by date. Titles of journals should be cited
in full — not abbreviated.

Details of submission guidelines can be found
in the on-line Style Guide for Authors at
http: //nsw.royalsoc.org.au

MASTER MANUSCRIPT FOR
PRINTING

The journal is printed from master pages pre-
pared by the FTRX 2¢ typesetting program.
When a paper has been accepted for publica-
tion, the author(s) will be required to submit
the paper in a suitable electronic format. De-
tails can be found in the on-line Style Guide.
Galley proofs will be provided to authors for
final checking prior to publication.

REPRINTS

Individual papers in PDF format and of screen
resolution are available freely from our website.
Authors can be provided with print quality
PDFs upon request.

Journal and Proceed. wa
The Royal Society of New South Wales —

Volume 142 Parts 3 and 4 Numbers 433-434

CONTENTS

TYLER, PETER J.
Seeing Stars in the City — A History of Early Astronomy in Sydney Eo

BHATHAL, RAGBIR

Pre-contact Astronomy 7 15

BHATHAL, RAGBIR
Stellar Astrophysics 25

SMITH, K., SCARR, M. AND SCARPACTI, C.

Does Grey Nurse Shark (Carcharias taurus) Diving Tourism Promote Biocentric |
Values Within Participants? ol
ABSTRACTS OF THESES

HeEcTOR, D. Towards a New Philosophy of Engineering: Structuring the — 45
Complex Problems from the Sustainability Discourse

KHALIFA, M. Geological and Geophysical Evaluation and Interpretation of 46
the Blantyre Sub-basin, Darling Basin, New South Wales
IBRAHIM, A. Thesis Abstract: An Investigation on the Use of EGR ina 48
Natural Gas SI Engine
SCHOLARSHIPS
Tamara Keeley, Isa Chan & Danielle Sulikowski AQ

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS

Maren Krysko von Tryst 50
Howard Hamlet Gordon McKern Boe
ISSN 0035-9173 Issued December 2009 = |

The Royal Society of New South Wales
Building H47, 121 Darlington Road, University of Sydney NSW 2006

http://nsw.royalsoc.org.au