W.B. Clarke and Mount Kosciusko
During January 2022 I was contacted by a fellow researcher who required a copy of a geological report by the Reverend W.B. Clarke, who, during 1851-2, carried out surveys for the New South Wales government in the southern and northern districts of the colony. This arose out of the discovery of gold at Sofir, near Bathurst, early in 1851. During these excursions, Clarke made records in the form of diary notes, letters, geological notes and the collection of geological specimens. Due to the often precarious nature of his travels, over areas that had not previously been mapped in any detail, it appears that he frequently sent some of this material back to Sydney for safe keeping with his friend Philip Parker King R.N., former captain of H.M.S. Beagle . King compiled some of this material into reports for the Sydney newspaper the Sydney Morning Herald . Clarke had been the default science editor for the paper since the early 1840s and, as a result, much of his work was reported therein. I