Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia Part 2

'to do unto others as we would be done by.'

Ever your affectionate son,

W.J. WILLS.

P.S. If I go, I will write again before starting.

The expedition he here speaks of turned out a mere venture to obtain cash, and nothing came of it. He remained but a short time at Ballaarat, and never idle. In a month he completed a wooden addition to my residence, building the sides, and shingling the roof in a most workmanlike manner. It was perfectly weatherproof, and stood good for some years, being only taken down when an alteration in the line of the street rendered its removal necessary. He now wished to study surveying. My acquaintance with Mr. Taylor, district surveyor at Ballaarat, obtained for him an admission as an amateur into his office. He there set to work with his characteristic industry to perfect himself in trigonometry and Euclid; drawing and mapping in the office by day, and working hard in his own room by night. On rising from bed in the morning, I have found him sitting as I had left him, working out his point, for he never deserted anything he had once taken up until he mastered it.

At the expiration of a few months, Mr. Taylor promised me to introduce him to a gentleman in the survey department named Byerly, with a view to reciprocal services. On the 20th of August, 1856, he speaks for himself in a letter to his mother from Glendaruel:

MY DEAR MOTHER,

I have at length found time to write to you. You will no doubt expect a long letter after so much delay, but I am afraid you will be disappointed, as long letters are not my forte. In your last, you asked me to send Bessy any information I could. I can a.s.sure you I shall be most happy to do so, and to encourage her taste for knowledge as much as lies in my power. I send her Bonwick's Geography of Australia, which is a very useful little book, and in most instances correct.

You must not look upon it as infallible. For instance, he says Lake Burrambeet is in the Pyrenees, whereas it is more than twenty miles from those mountains. But this may be a misprint. I would recommend you to let the children learn drawing. I do not mean merely sketching, but perspective drawing, with scale and compa.s.ses. It is a very nice amus.e.m.e.nt, and may some day be found extremely useful.

There is another thing would do them much good, if they should happen to have a taste for it: this is Euclid. Not to learn by heart, but to read so as to understand it. Mathematics generally, and Euclid, and Algebra in particular, are the best studies young people can undertake, for they are the only things we can depend on as true, (of course I leave the Bible out of the question).

Christian and Heathen, Mahometan and Mormon, no matter what their religious faith may be, agree in mathematics, if in nothing else.

But I must now tell you something of your undutiful son. I am learning surveying under Mr. F. Byerly, a very superior man indeed.

In fact I could not have had a better master had he been made to order, for he is a first-rate surveyor, and we are exactly suited to each other in our general ideas; and this, to tell the truth, is a rare chance for me.

I am getting 150 pounds per annum, and rations, but I hope in twelve months to have a party of my own. It is just the sort of life for me, nearly always in the bush marking out land for sale, or laying down unknown parts. It is quite a different thing from surveying in England. Glendaruel is fifteen miles from Ballaarat. I saw the Doctor and Tom a few days since. They were quite well; I hope you are so also. Love to all.

Your affectionate son,

W.J. WILLS.

He was appointed to the charge of a field party before the time he expected. I was anxious to give him a set of surveying instruments, and requested him to send me a list and an order to the best London maker for such as he wanted. He transmitted the following letter, which marks the progress of his knowledge, to be forwarded to Messrs. Troughton and Sims, Fleet Street. I obtained it very recently from that house.

March 20th, 1857.

SIRS,

I shall be much obliged by your executing the following order as quickly as possible, and at your most reasonable prices.

1. One four-inch theodolite, best construction: 21 pounds.

2. One of Troughton's best reflecting circles, eight-inch radius, divided on silver: 23 pounds.

3. One prismatic compa.s.s, three and a-half inch, with silver ring: 5 pounds 5 shillings.

4. One six-inch semicircular protractor, with Vernier: 3 pounds 3 shillings.

5. One gla.s.s plane artificial horizon, ordnance pattern: 4 pounds 4 shillings.

6. One bra.s.s rolling parallel ruler, two feet long; must not weigh less than five pounds.

7. One twelve-inch bra.s.s sector: 1 pound.

8. One set of six-inch ivory plotting-scales, with offset scales complete: 4 pounds.

9. Two steel straight-edges, three feet each.

10. Four sixty feet land chains.

11. One small compact case of good sector-jointed, drawing instruments with ivory parallel ruler: 3 pounds 3 shillings.

12. One very small achromatic telescope of the strongest make, not to exceed six inches in length, when closed: 1 pound.

13. A small chemical blowpipe with ivory mouthpiece, and two platina tips; also some platina foil and wire.

14. Two Nautical Almanacs, 1858 and 1859.

Leather cases and straps for theodolite, circle, and prismatic compa.s.s. A catalogue of instruments with prices.

N.B. I should wish the theodolite and circles to be packed very differently from the usual way, as many instruments are seriously injured by the box warping either inwards or outwards; in the one case pressing too much on the instruments, and in the other, which is worse, leaving them too much s.p.a.ce, so that they shake about whenever the box is carried. The consequence is that the screws loosen, the gla.s.ses fall out of the telescopes, and the instruments become unfit for use just when they are most wanted. I think these evils may be avoided by having the parts of the box which touch any instrument well padded with the most elastic materials, and for it to be supported entirely on steel springs, strong enough to keep it firmly in its place, and with sufficient play to allow the box to warp without injury to any of the contents. I also wish an improvement in the stand of the theodolite, which ought not to be smaller than that of the five-inch one, and the joints made of the metals least likely to sustain damage from friction. The cap-piece should be nearly twice the depth, vertically, and cut out of one solid piece of metal. I subjoin a sketch of it, with the dimensions. It may be made of whatever metal you think proper.

There is no harm in having iron about it, because we seldom require to use the needle. My reason for wanting this improvement is, that the legs get loose so quickly from the wearing away of bra.s.s, and that the many small surfaces in contact are too disproportionate to their length. Strength and durability are of far more consequence than lightness, as we have not the facilities for getting things repaired here that you have in England. The figures I have placed opposite to the instruments described are not supposed to be the exact prices, but merely suggested as guides. I hope you will do the best you can with the improvements mentioned, especially in the mode of packing the larger articles. Please also to insure them to the full value.

I have the honour to be,

Gentlemen,

Your obedient servant,

W.J. WILLS.

He then in a postscript makes some suggestions as to the graduation of the scales. The instruments were sent out in the shortest possible time and gave great satisfaction. On departing for his last fatal expedition, he requested me, should he not return, to give all his remaining instruments to his friend Mr.

Byerly, for whom his high estimation never abated. This injunction I fulfilled as far as in my power. Any person who may happen to be in charge of some that I had not, will I trust deliver them to their lawful owner, Frederick Byerly, Esquire, Surveyor, Melbourne.

About the time I am now referring to, I was often congratulated by gentlemen of the Surveying Department, who were acquainted with my son, on his rapid progress in the difficult branches of the science. One, in particular, said: "I consider it wonderful that your son should have mastered this business almost by his own exertions, whilst I have cost my father nearly a thousand pounds in England, under first-rate teachers, and am glad to go to him for information on many points." Mr. Byerly too, who is not given to flatter, when I thanked him for having so ably instructed and brought my son forward in so short a time, replied: "Don't thank me; I really believe he has taught me quite as much as I have taught him." In my own experience, his queries and suggestions led me to investigate many things, which I had slightly considered, without thoroughly understanding them. He had a rare gift of ascertaining in a very short time the use of any instrument put into his hands, and could detect at a glance its defects, if such existed. In the early part of 1858, a gentleman who had made errors in his surveys asked him to look over some of his instruments.

William, on taking one into his hand, said at once, with a smile: "If you work with this, you will find many errors." "That is why I asked you," replied the owner. "I have been surveying with it, and have committed nothing but mistakes." So much were people in the habit of praising him, that it carried my thoughts back to my Latin Grammar, and the quotation from Terence:--

Omnes omnia Bona dicere et laudare fortunas meas, Qui gnatum haberem tali ingenio praeditum.

For himself, he was perpetually lamenting to me that at school he had not received more mathematical instruction; that the time spent in cla.s.sics exclusively, was, for many, time thrown away. But I must do his late master the justice of saying, that when he first received him under his tuition, he showed little fondness for mathematics in general, although he had a taste for algebra. The two following letters, to his brother and mother, bearing the same date, in the spring of 1858, were despatched from the out-station where he was engaged in a survey.

St. Arnaud, April 10th, 1858.

DEAR CHARLEY,

I do not think you have written a letter to me since we have been out here. It gave me much pleasure to see yours to the Doctor. I wish you could be here, instead of working for 40 or 50 pounds a year at home, out of which you can save very little. Here you might be getting at least 100 pounds, and nothing to find yourself but clothes. But it will not do for you to come until the Doctor goes home. I want you to write and tell me if you have any taste for any particular profession, and if you have been making good use of your spare time, in reading useful works. You should remember never to waste a minute; always be doing something. Try and find out what things you have most taste for, as they are what you should study most; but get a general knowledge of all the sciences. Whatever else you learn, don't forget mathematics and the sciences more immediately deduced from them, (at the head of which stands astronomy,) if you have any love of truth--and if you have not, you have none of your mother's blood in you. Mathematics are the foundation of all truth as regards practical science in this world; they are the only things that can be demonstrably proved; no one can dispute them. In geology, chemistry, and even in astronomy, there is more or less of mere matter of opinion. For instance, in astronomy we do not know for certain what the sun or stars are made of, or what the spots are on the sun, and a few details of that kind; but the main mathematical principles cannot be disputed. The distance and size of the sun or of any of the planets can be proved; the length of their days and years, and even the weight of the matter of which they are composed. Such things will probably appear to you impossible, if you have read nothing of them; especially when you hear that the sun is ninety-five millions of miles off, and that the planet Neptune, which is the farthest known planet from the sun, is at such a distance that the light of the sun takes about five hours to reach it; that is, the sun is actually five hours above the horizon before the people there see it rise. Its distance is 2850 millions of miles, and the sun as seen by them is not larger than Venus appears to us when an evening star. And although this planet is so distant that it can only be seen with large telescopes, they can not only compute its distance and size, but also the ma.s.s of matter of which it is composed. But you will find all this thrown into the shade by the way in which it was discovered. As I may be telling you what you know already, I will merely state, that from observed perturbations in the course of the planet Ura.n.u.s, it was supposed that another planet was in existence beyond it; and two compet.i.tors set to work to calculate its size, situation, etc. The result was, the discovery of this other planet within a few minutes of the place pointed out by them, and its size, etc., not very different from what they estimated it at. But besides this, astronomy includes matters more intimately mixed up with our everyday affairs. In the Nautical Almanacs, which are constructed for several years in advance, the situations and nearly everything connected with the different planets are calculated for every day in the year, and can be found, if required, for any minute in any day you please, for 10,000 years to come. Also the eclipses of the sun or moon, with the exact moment at which they will commence or end, at any spot on the earth; the exact portion eclipsed, or, in fact, anything about it you like to mention for any given number of years in advance. Not only this, but you can find the eclipses of Jupiter's moons with the same precision. Now is there anything to be compared with this? But if astronomy led to no other end than the mere gaining of knowledge, or the a.s.sistance of commerce, it would take a far lower stand than it is really ent.i.tled to. As the great object of the science is the correction of error and the investigation of truth, it necessarily leads all those that feel an interest in it to a higher appreciation and desire for truth; and you will easily perceive that a man having a knowledge of all these vast worlds, so much more extensive than our own, must be capable of forming a far higher estimate of that Almighty Being who created all these wonders, than one who knows nothing more than the comparatively trifling things that surround us on earth.

I send you 3 pounds, with which you are to get the following books for yourself and the girls: