Sounding 6 begins with Bain Attwood’s thesis Blacks & Lohans and an echo titled SEX & SORROW EAST OF MELBOURNE. Then Henry Meyrick’s frontier life and death in Western Port and Gipps Land leads into Echo 93: TAMING MELBOURNE BAYSIDE & THE DANDENONGS. Turning to OPENING GIPPSLAND: elite squatters at Sale are contrasted by surviving Kooris on Jackson’s Track. The narrative then backtracks in time with Echo 95: CONTRIBUTIONS TO TRUTH ABOUT SLAUGHTER IN GIPPSLAND comprising the Porter, Cox, Fels and Gardner versions of the blood-stained land-grab. Fels then reports on the Native Police actions and Morgan’s recent overview of the Ganai before and after white settlement concludes the shameful issues long denied or excused. Echo 96: LIAR’S LUNCH charts the rise and fall of pioneer Angus McMillan MP before the focus shifts to the historical geography of East Gippsland clans and languages and on to missionary Bulmer at Lake Tyers with the stories of the payback of Hopping Kitty and Attwood’s study of Brataualung man Tarra Bobby. Alfred Howitt’s birthing of Oz anthropology with his opus The Native Tribes of South-east Australia published at the start of the 20th century is the source material of several echoes on the making of ‘clever’ men and on songs and song-makers. Sounding 6 closes with extracts reprinted from Professor Elkin’s Aboriginal Men of High Degree – their personality and ‘making’, the powers of medicine men, and in conclusion Echo 106: ABORIGINAL MEN OF HIGH DEGREE IN A CHANGING WORLD.

This book challenges the common assumption that little or nothing of scientific value was achieved during the Burke and Wills expedition. The Royal Society of Victoria initiated the Victorian Exploring Expedition as a serious scientific exploration of hitherto unexplored regions of inland and northern Australia. Members of the expedition were issued with detailed instructions on scientific measurements and observations to be carried out, covering about a dozen areas of science. The tragic ending of the expedition meant that most of the results of the scientific investigations were not reported or published. Burke and Wills: The Scientific Legacy of the Victorian Exploring Expedition rectifies this historic omission. It includes the original instructions as well as numerous paintings and drawings, documents the actual science undertaken as recorded in notebooks and diaries, and analyses the outcomes. It reveals for the first time the true extent and limits of the scientific achievements of both the Burke and Wills expedition and the various relief expeditions which followed. Importantly, this new book has led to a re-appraisal of the shortcomings and the successes of the journey. It will be a compelling read for all those interested in the history of exploration, science and natural history, as well as Australian history and heritage.