Presenting Australia [antikvár]

Australia - Two Centuries MUSTRALIA, the world's smallest continent íjk and largest island, is a land of contrast X jL and contradiction. With shores washed by three oceans and four seas and an area of nearly 800 millión hectares the diversity of scenery, climate and conformation is vast. The breathtaking monotony of the barren red heartland is offset by iced peaks of snow in the mountains of the south-east, golden glowing pinnacles of the Macdonnell Ranges in the Northern Territory and behemoth sandstone monoliths such as Ayers Rock and the Olgas. Lush, steamy jungle and conifer dominated forest contrast with deserts of drifting sand dunes, large expanses of salt pan, dry creek beds and undulating savannah. There is no such thing as a typical Australian landscape and every Australian has his own interpretation of his country. The Beginnings Australia was the last great habitable land mass on earth to be surveyed and colonized by Europeans. Aeons befő re the explorers made their landfall, the Aborigines took possession of the vast, empty continent. They are believed to have travelled from Asia along transitory land bridges created by the rising and ebbing seas of the Ice Age. For thousands of years they occupied the continent undisturbed and undiscovered. Myth, legend and vague map sketches indicate an awareness of Terra Australis, the Great South Land, during the centuries it remained uncharted. Inca, Greek and ancient Egyptian legend all speak of a great land to the south. Second-century geographers make reference to the land and in the Middle Ages it was sketched vaguely on the map. Japanese, Indonesian and Chinese mariners may have landed on its northern shores before the arrival of the first Europeans, but there is no incontrovertible evidence of this. It must be assumed The Duyfken in the Gulf of Carpentaria that the Portuguese were the first civilized men to sight the continent that was for centuries regarded as desolate and inhospitable. Although there is no documentary proof that the Portuguese ships sighted Australia, there is evidence that supports the possibility that these great seafarers exploring the archipelagos of the East Indies came within sight of the Australian coast before 1542. In 1606, Torres, the Spaniard, sailed through the passage separating New Guinea from Australia, but probably missed sighting the southern continent. In the same year, the Dutch East India