Voyage de decouverte aux Terres Australes by Francois Peron, 1807, translated by Sir William Dixson in 1946

DLWD 88 (Vol. 1)
DLWD 89 (Vol. 2)

fonds

1807, translated in 1946

950175

2 volumes of textual material - manuscript, typescript

Francois Peron, French naturalist, was born in 1775. After service in the army, he studied medicine, geology and comparative anatomy. In October 1800, he sailed as a naturalist in La Geographe on Baudin's expedition to the South Seas. The compilation of the narrative part of the voyage and the description of the natural history specimens, which he collected, was entrusted to Peron, who died in 1810, before the second volume was completed. He was helped in the compilation of the account by Louis Claude de Sauces Freycinet, a lieutenant on the Naturaliste, who also assisted Hamelin, the Captain, in exploratory work in West Australia, Tasmania and Bass Strait. On July 1802, Freycinet was given command of the Casuarina for inshore exploratory work. He explored th St Vincent and Spencer Gulf before proceeding to Mauritius where the Casuarina was sold. In 1815, he completed Baudin's survey of Shark Bay, Western Australia and removed the Vlamingh plate

DLWD 88 Peron's voyage de decouvertes aux Terres Australes. Vol. 1 (part) Translated 11/11/46
'This translation starts at Book 2, and does not include any of the purely scientific matters' (Sir William Dixson)
Commences at Chapter 5, p. 63, and continues to Chapter 18
An account based on Peron's personal journals. Contains an often detailed description of the voyage of the Geographe Isle de France 25 April 1801 to the end of the stay in New South Wales, 18 November 1802, and Peron's work as a naturalist, also giving his observations in the aborigines and the history of places visited. Purely scientific data and lists have been omitted in the translation. Includes accounts of the Geographe's survey of the coast of Western Australia, the period spent at Timor, surveys of the Bass Strait, Tasmania, Victoria and South Australia and the six months stay at Sydney, when Peron and his companions travelled in New South Wales.

Chapters 9 and 10 are written by Louis Freycinet, and concern the operations of the Naturaliste at Shark Bay, Western Australia, from June to September 1801. Chapter 18, written by Peron, with the assistance of Freycinet and Bailly recounts the operations of the Naturaliste in Bass Strait, in Tasmania and Western Port before she went to Port Jackson


DLWD 89
This is the second volume of Peron's voyage, 18 November 1802-16 April 1803. Commences at Chapter 22, Book IV, and continues to Chapter 34, omitting Chapter 28, which deals with zoological phenomena

Continues the account of the expedition from the departure from Sydney to the return to France. Includes the charting of Bass Strait and completion of the Tasmanian survey when the Naturalist returned to France, surveys on the South and Western Australian coasts, the second stay in Timor, and the return to Europe via Isle de France and the Cape of Good Hope

Peron had edited Volume 2 up to the end of Chapter 30, and had started on Chapter 31, when he died. It was necessary to recast the work before it could be completed, however Peron's manuscript forms the bare and principal part of this chapter, which Freycinet completed.

Also includes typescript of selected passages of Sir William Dixson's relating to Port Jackson, made in Dixson Library, June 1966.

Contents list available with item -

Information transferred from Dixson Manuscript Card Catalogue as part of the eRecords Project, 2011-2012.

Vol. 2 is bound. Spine title: Voyage to the southern hemisphere

Original published in Paris in 1807

The volumes from which the translation was made are filed in the Dixson Library at Q81/11-12