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9 corrections, most recently by bevj88 - Show corrections

CANBERRA MAY HAVE BEEN

NAMED AFTER TREE

The possibility that Canberra was named after a native tree not unlike the English cranberry was suggested by Mr. A. Percival, former Commonwealth Surveyor-General, in an address to the Canberra and District   Historical Society last night.

The meaning of "Canberra" is unknown, but has generally been regarded as a derivative of an aboriginal word, or from the Kamberra tribe or blacks whom one authority described as roaming the Limestone Plains

in 1850.

Mr. Percival said Canberra's

title had always puzzled him. He had not found any native

record of it.

In the original notes of the first surveyor, Robert Hoddle, who started the first detailed survey of the surrounding   district in 1832, there was reference to the Limestone Plains,   Mr. Percival said.

Working towards Queanbeyan, Hoddle had also spoken of the area to the north as the "Cranberry Plains" probably because   of a small tree with red berries similar to the English cranberry.

"I have seen the trees on the slopes of Mt. Ainslie," Mr.  

Percival said.

Mr. Percival, who was in the original Commonwealth survey in the A.C.T., said he located   some of Hoddle's boundary   marks made about 80 years ago. In one instance he had to cut deeply into a tree to find it. The tree had overgrown the mark.

ARDUOUS SURVEYS

Mr. Percival illustrated his talk with slides which indicated the conditions under which survey crews had to work.  

They worked in intense heat and cold, with rabbits so thick they could be knocked over with sticks, and ibises so numerous that when they flew they formed a cloud that blotted out the  

sun.

Every contour line at five feet intervals for the city area was

"run" on the ground, and the  

work was carried out with  

infinite accuracy.    

A nine-mile traverse from the

bench mark on Queanbeyan    

station closed to within a quarter  

of an inch. This bench mark, 1,905.05 feet above sea-level— and just opposite the station bar —was the basic point for the Canberra survey.

Working long hours, often with 3,000 observations a day   and computation and plotting at night, the contour plan for the city area was finished in five

months.  

Mr. Percival gave many  

amusing instances of life in the bush with a surveying party. In  

one case a bushman with an    

artistic flair carved the features

of a number of neighbours in   large tree stumps near his bark

hut. In some instances  

relatlons became strained. So skilled    

were his charcoal sketches      

that the late W. B. Griffin, the  

originator of the Canberra plan,

purchased all of them on a visit   to the Brindabella range.

Another farmer offered as dowry 20 cattle and £500 to the man who married his charming though husky daughter.

Then there were two elderly women whose shooting prowess enabled them to cut out the brand of a small tin in four shots from 50 yards.

One night he saw two of his men racing through a wheat field after a station dance. It transpired they could dance better than the rest of the men,   and attracted the girls, including the belle of the district. The   objections of the remaining men

were violent.

Mrs. Percival shared most of the rigours of survey camp life with her husband, one particularly nerve-wracking period being   during a flood when water lapped the mattress of the bed on  

which she lay with a sick child.  

Mr. Percival's unique photographic record of early Can   -ed by many of the audience, whose families have been resident in the A.C.T. for generations.  

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