Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1870 - 1919), Saturday 20 November 1897, page 8


Ernest Giles.

News came on Monday of the death, at Cool-gardie on Suturday, of Ernest Giles, the well-known explorer. The fate and the achieve-ments of their pioneer explorers have always strongly appealed to the sympathies as well as to the imagination of Australians. There is a human interest in the move- ments, the trials, and sufferings of explorers whether on sea or land that is superior, in one way, to anything that can be evoked on be-

half of the merely scientific results or the practical benefits ultimately conferred upon mankind by the labors of those men. Aus-

tralia has offered a rich field for exploring enterprise, and a long list of names is asso-ciated with the efforts to discover the in-

terior of the continent and make known to

the world its capabilities, its mountains, rivers and the character of its soil, its

flora and fauna. It is impossible

to estimate at its true value the services rendered to Australian coloni-

sation by such men as Sir George Grey, Sir Thomas Mitchell, Captain Sturt, Ludwig Leichhardt, Burke and Wills. Ernest Giles's name deserves to be honorably remembered in companionship with those earlier heroes. He has added substantially to our knowledge of the interior of the continent, in Queensland, South Australia, and West Australia. He began his career as an explorer in the northern colony. His first important expedition was in 1872, when he led a party through country some 250 miles west of the great overland telegraph line between Ade-

laide and Port Darwin. In this

expedition he gave unmistakable evidence of possessing the qualities of a great ex- plorer, and his name was brought prominently before the public and the scientific world. Baron Von Mueller, whose friendship he had won, and who was mainly instrumental in equipping his first expedition, now succeeded in raising a fund for a second journey, which Giles undertook with a party of four white men, and twenty-four horses. By this expedition he added some 700 miles to what was previously known of the

interior of the continent. He and his

companions endured great hardships on this journey. They remained out for twelve months, making for the west coast. Their provisions giving out, they had to live upon their horses. His next effort was in 1875, under the patronage of Sir Thomas Elder. This time his party was provisioned for eighteen months. He travelled over thousands of miles, much of his route being through almost waterless desert. For seventeen days, through one stretch of 325 miles, no water was found. He made the outlying settlements of West Australia

after traversing some 2400 miles, and made the return journey several hundred miles north of his previous route. He was rewarded with the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society. His work, "Australia Twice Traversed," pub- lished in 1889, forms an important contri-bution to geographical knowledge of the

interior of the continent. Unlike

too many of his fellow-explorers, it was his fate to survive all the ordeals

through which he had to pass, and to end his days in his bed. He is reported to have succumbed to an attack of pneumonia. He has left behind a name that will be long remembered and held in honor as one who had devoted the best years of his life to one

of the noblest causes that man can engage in.