Exploration of Australia and New Guinea. History of Australian exploration

America was discovered by Columbus, and Australia by Captain Cook. Both of these statements have long been disputed many times, but they continue to live in the consciousness of the masses. Long before Captain Cook set foot on the coast of Australia on April 20, 1770, sailors from the Old World had landed here more than once.

According to a number of historians, the discoverers of Australia are the Portuguese. They claim that an expedition led by Cristovão de Mendonça visited the north-west coast of Australia in 1522. It is unknown whether this happened intentionally or accidentally. The details of this voyage are also unknown. The only material evidence that has reached us are small bronze cannons with the image of the Portuguese crown minted on them. They were found in 1916 on the shores of Roebuck Bay (Western Australia) and date back to beginning of the XVI centuries.

2 Willem Janszoon Expedition

The first European to visit Australia is considered to be the Dutchman Willem Janszoon. On November 28, 1605, Captain Janszon set off from Bantam on the ship Dufken to unknown lands. Having bypassed the islands of Kai and Aru from the north, he reached the southern coast of New Guinea, completely unfamiliar to the Dutch. Janszohn called it "Marshy Land" and traced the coastline for 400 kilometers. Having then rounded the island of Kolepom, Janszon turned southeast, crossed the central part of the Arafura Sea and unexpectedly saw the shore. This was Australia. In the western part of the Cape York Peninsula, near the mouth of a small river, in May 1606, the Dutch made the first documented landing of Europeans on the Australian continent.

Janszon steered his ship along the flat, deserted coast. Although the unknown land, as the Dutch were convinced, stretched further to the south, on June 6, 1606, at Cape Kerver (“Turn”), the Dufken turned 180º and set off on its way back. During the landing at Albatross Bay, the Dutch first came into contact with the Australian Aborigines. A battle immediately broke out, with several people killed on both sides. Continuing north, the sailors traced and mapped the coast of Cape York Peninsula almost to its northern tip. Total length The explored coastline of Australia, which Janszoon dubbed New Holland, was about 350 kilometers.

3 Expedition of Jan Carstens

The wreck of the English ship Trial, which occurred on May 25, 1622, on the reefs near the islands of Monte Bello and Barrow, showed that the complete lack of exploration of the waters washing the coast of North-Western and Northern Australia poses great dangers. The leadership of the Dutch East India Company decided to explore the ocean south of Java and trace the southern coast of New Guinea. To accomplish this task, the expedition of Jan Carstens set off from Batavia in January 1623 on two ships, the Pera and the Arnhem. For more than a week, Dutch sailors sailed along the southern coast of New Guinea. On the morning of February 16, Carstens saw a high mountain range in the distance - this was the western part of the Maoke Mountains. Five days later, a group of Dutchmen landed on shore to resupply. Local population was very hostile. As a result of the skirmish, 10 sailors were killed, including the captain of the Arnhem.

On March 20, the expedition reached the southwestern tip of New Guinea. The weather worsened and a storm began. On March 28, Carstens sent a navigator on a boat with 12 sailors to explore the shore visible in the distance. They reported that the sea to the east was becoming shallower, and desert land was visible in the distance. Meanwhile, walking along the coast became dangerous: shoals and reefs began to appear more and more often. The Dutch turned to the open sea.

On April 12, land appeared on the horizon again. This was Australia. For two weeks, Carstens' ships sailed south along the western coast of the Cape York Peninsula, landing on land several times - at river mouths and in bays. The natives he met were quite peaceful. The flat and low-lying coast of North-West Australia was described by Carstens in his report as “the most barren on Earth”. The Dutch couldn't even find enough fresh water here. In addition, the expedition's flagship, Pera, was damaged. Carstens instructed Kolster, the captain of the Arnhem, to complete the exploration of the coast, and he himself turned north and safely reached the Moluccas. Kolster, moving south, managed to reach the Gulf of Carpentaria. Taking advantage of the favorable southeast monsoon, he turned northwest from here and, following this course, opened large peninsula, later named after his ship by the Arnhemland Peninsula.

4 Abel Tasman Expeditions

By the early 1640s. The Dutch knew and mapped the following parts of Australia: in the north - the western coast of the Cape York Peninsula, the Arnhem Land ledge, the entire western coast of the mainland and the western part of its southern coast. However, it was still not clear what this mysterious land was: a separate continent or a giant protrusion of the as yet undiscovered Great Southern Continent? And the pragmatic directors of the East India Company were also worried about another question: what was the potential benefit of these newly discovered lands? What are their commercial prospects? The expedition of the Dutch navigator Abel Tasman, which set out from Batavia in 1642 on two small ships “Heemskerk” and “Zehan”, was supposed to answer these questions. Tasman did not encounter any continent and only on November 24, from the board of the Zehan, they saw a high coast called Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania). Tasman was never sure whether it was an island or the southern tip of Australia, and Van Diemen's Land was considered a peninsula for more than a century and a half until Bass Strait was passed. Having gone further to the southeast, Tasman discovered New Zealand, and this was the end of the expedition, leaving a lot of unresolved problems.

In 1645, the governor of Batavia, Van Diemen, sent Tasman on a new expedition to the shores of Australia. Tasman's three ships surveyed the southern coast of New Guinea for 750 kilometers and completed the discovery of the Gulf of Carpentaria, bypassing its eastern and, for the first time, southern and western shores. Experienced sailors, the Dutch never noticed the entrance to the Torres Strait. In total, the expedition explored and mapped about 5.5 thousand kilometers of coastline and established that all the lands previously discovered by the Dutch were parts of a single continent - New Holland. However, Tasman did not find anything worthy of attention from the point of view of commerce on this continent, and after 1644 the Dutch completely lost interest in the Green Continent.

5 James Cook Expedition

In 1768, James Cook set off on his first voyage around the world. In April 1770, Cook approached the eastern coast of Australia. On the shore of the bay, in the waters of which the ship Endeavor stopped, the expedition managed to find many previously unknown plant species, so Cook called this bay Botanical. From Botany Bay, Cook headed northwest along the east coast of Australia.

A few kilometers north of Botany Bay, James Cook discovered a wide natural passage into a huge natural harbor - Port Jackson. In his report, the researcher described it as perfect place for the safe anchorage of many ships. Many years later, the first Australian city, Sydney, was founded here. It took Cook the next four months to climb up to the Gulf of Carpentaria, to an area called New Holland. The navigator compiled detailed map coastline of the future Australia.

Having not quite happily passed the Great Barrier Reef, the Endeavor finally reached the northern tip of Australia. On August 22, 1770, James Cook, on behalf of King George III, solemnly proclaimed the land he had explored as the possession of Great Britain and named it New South Wales.

Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation

Omsk State Pedagogical University

Department of Physical Geography

Geographers are explorers of Australia.

Essay

Performed: student

Faculty of Geography

group 16 Zakharova Evgenia

Checked: teacher

Departments of Physical Geography

Balashenko Valentina Ivanovna

Omsk 2003

Plan:

1. Introduction

2. Pedro Fernandez de Quiros

3. Janszoon Willem

4. Abel Tasman

5. James Cook

6. Flinders Matthew

7. Sturt Charles

8. Stewart John McDouall

9. Leichhardt Ludwig

10. Burke Robert O'Hara

11. Sir John Forrest

12. Conclusion

13. References

Introduction

IN early XVII century in the Southern Hemisphere, the ghost of the greatest continent - Australia - began to take on more and more clear outlines. Often, real geographical achievements were not achieved suddenly and not by one specific person. So the discovery of Australia did not happen immediately, and many navigators took part in this enterprise.

Long before James Cook discovered Australia, people dreamed about it. The fact is that scientists argued that the fourth continent was necessary in order to maintain the balance of the Earth, but the people hoped to find gold, pearls, spices or some other unprecedented wealth there. So they searched for Australia for a long time.
And there at that time the aborigines lived calmly, looked at the world optimistically and believed that man and nature were one, and their totems (animals, plants or natural phenomena with which they identified themselves) would protect them from any troubles and misfortunes. However, in 1770, James Cook solemnly sailed his ship along the east coast of the “New Land”, named it New South Wales and declared it the property of the British crown. It is interesting that in fact, a certain Dutchman Willem Janszoon sailed to the shores of Australia a little earlier, however, he did not appreciate the merits of the lands he found, therefore, apparently, he was not appreciated as a discoverer. On the other hand, it must be said that the British crown assessed these lands in a rather unique way - they decided to organize prison settlements there. And they organized it!
By the early 40s of the last century, the construction of the continent had achieved noticeable success. Life in Australia had become quite bearable, and sending convicts there lost all meaning.
Since 1840, a stream of free migrants poured there. Australians today are very proud of their convict ancestors: it’s prestigious. The descendants of decent great-grandfathers are looked upon there somewhat condescendingly.

Pedro Fernandez de Quiros (1565-1614)

Belief in the existence of another continent prompted the Spaniard Mendaña to travel from America to the southern part Pacific Ocean, where he discovered some of the Marshall and Solomon Islands and Ellis Island.
His second expedition included the young captain and helmsman Pedro Fernandez de Quiros (1565-1614), who also believed in the existence of the Southern continent.
Quiros was only thirty years old when he went to Peru and received a position as captain and chief helmsman of Mendaña. The expedition consisted of three hundred and seventy-eight people, placed on four ships. Unfortunately, Mendaña took his wife and a crowd of relatives with him.
Quiros, who at first hesitated whether to take part in the expedition, soon became convinced that his doubts were well founded. All affairs were handled by Senora Mendaña, an arrogant and power-hungry woman, and the head of the military detachment turned out to be a rude and tactless person.
But Quiros decided not to pay attention to anything and continued to conscientiously fulfill his duties.
On July 26, 1595, sailors saw an island at a distance of approximately 4,200 kilometers from Lima, which they named Magdalena. When about four hundred natives came in canoes to the ships and brought coconuts and fresh water, the Spanish soldiers turned this friendly visit into a massacre, ending in the stampede of the natives. Such cases were repeated more than once in the future. In 1605, 3 ships under the command of Pedro Fernandez de Quiros set out from Callao to search for the Southern mainland. The expedition discovered land, which was mistaken for the Southern Continent and called Australia Espirito Santo. It subsequently turned out that it was an island from the New Hebridean group. In mid-1606, two ships lost sight of Quiros's ship during a storm and continued sailing under the command of Luis Vaez de Torres. The ships passed along the southern coast of New Guinea, separating it from the Southern mainland, but information about this was buried in the secret archives of Spain.

Janszoon Willem . Dutch navigator of the 17th century. In 1606 he discovered Australia (west coast of the Cape York Peninsula). The Dutch navigator Wilem Janszoon, on the ship "Dyfken" in 1605, "discovered in the southern Indian Ocean a vast landmass called Zeidlandt (South Land), which began to be considered part of the Southern continent. At the beginning of 1606, Janszoon turned southeast, crossing the Arafura Sea and approached the western coast of the Cape York Peninsula in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Of course, these names were given later, and then the Dutch made the first documented landing on the shore of an unfamiliar land. Then the Drifken sailed south along the flat deserted coast, reaching the cape on June 6, 1606. Kerver. In Albatross Bay, the crew met the natives for the first time. A skirmish occurred in which several people died on both sides. Continuing the voyage, Janszon traced and mapped approximately 350 kilometers.

coastline of the Cape York Peninsula to its extreme northern tip and called this part of the peninsula New Guinea, believing that it was a continuation of this island.

Abel Tasman(1603-1659). In 1642, the Governor-General of the Dutch Indies, Van Diemen, decided to determine whether Australia was part of the Southern Continent and whether it was connected to it. New Guinea, and also find a new road from Java to Europe. Van Diemen found the young captain Abel Tasman, who, after going through many trials, won the reputation of an excellent connoisseur of the sea. Van Diemen gave him detailed instructions on where to go and how to act.
Abel Tasman was born in 1603 near Groningen in poor family, independently mastered reading and writing and, like many of his fellow countrymen, linked his destiny with the sea. In 1633, he appeared in Batavia and, on a small ship of the East India Company, traveled around many of the islands of the Malay Archipelago. In 1636, Tasman returned to Holland, but two years later he again found himself in Java. Here in 1639 Van Diemen organized an expedition to the North Pacific Ocean. It was headed by experienced navigator Matthijs Quast. Tasman was appointed as the skipper of the second ship.
Quast and Tasman had to find the mysterious islands allegedly discovered by the Spaniards to the east of Japan; these islands on some Spanish maps bore the tempting names "Rico de oro" and "Rico de I" ("rich in gold" and "rich in silver").
The expedition did not live up to Van Diemen's hopes, but it explored the Shona waters and reached the Kuril Islands. During this voyage, Tasman established himself as a brilliant helmsman and an excellent mandir. Scurvy killed almost the entire crew, but he managed to navigate the ship from the shores of Japan to Java, withstanding brutal attacks from the Taifu along the way.
Van Diemen showed considerable interest in Zeidlandt, and he was not disappointed by the failures of Gerrit Pohl's expedition. In 1641, he decided to send a new expedition to this land and appointed Tasman as its commander. Tasman had to find out whether Zuydlandt was part of the Southern Continent, establish how far it extended to the south, and find out the routes leading from it eastward into the still unknown seas of the western Pacific Ocean.
Tasman was provided with detailed instructions, which summarized the results of all voyages carried out in the waters of Zuydlandt and the western Pacific Ocean. This instruction has been preserved, and Tasman’s daily notes have also survived, which make it possible to reconstruct the entire route of the expedition. The company provided him with two ships: the small warship Heemskerk and the fast flute (cargo ship) Zehain. One hundred people took part in the expedition.
The ships left Batavia on August 14, 1642 and arrived on the island of Mauritius on September 5. On October 8, we left the island and headed south and then south-southeast. On November 6 we reached 49° 4" south latitude, but were unable to move further south due to a storm. Member of the expedition

Vischer proposed sailing to 150° east longitude, keeping to 44° south latitude, and then along 44° south latitude to go east to 160° east longitude.
Under the southern coast of Australia, Tasman thus passed 8-10° south of Neates's route, leaving the Australian mainland far to the north. He followed east at a distance of 400-600 miles from the southern coast of Australia and at 44° 15" south latitude and 147° 3" east longitude, he noted in his diary: "... all the time the excitement comes from the southwest, and although Every day we saw floating algae, we can assume that there is no large land in the south..." This was an absolutely correct conclusion: the closest land south of the Tasman route - Antarctica - lies south of the Antarctic Circle.
On November 24, 1642, a very high bank was noticed. This was the southwest coast of Tasmania, an island which Tasman considered part of Zeidlandt and called Van Diemen's Land. It is not easy to establish exactly which part of the coast the Dutch sailors saw on this day, because the maps of Vischer and another member of the expedition, Gilsemans, differ significantly from each other. Tasmanian geographer J. Walker believes that it was a mountainous coast north of Macquarie Harbor.
On December 2, the sailors landed on the shores of Van Diemen's Land. “On our boat,” writes Tasman, “there were four musketeers and six oarsmen, and each had a pike and a weapon at his belt... Then the sailors brought various greens (they saw them in abundance); some varieties were similar to these, what grows on the cape Good Hope... They rowed for four whole miles to a high cape, where on the flat areas all kinds of greenery grew, not planted by man, but from God, and there was abundance here fruit trees, and in the wide valleys there are many streams, which, however, are difficult to reach, so that you can only fill a flask with water.
The sailors heard some sounds, something like playing a horn or striking a small gong, and this noise was heard nearby. But they were unable to see anyone. They noticed two trees 2-2 1/2 fathoms thick and 60-65 feet high, and the trunks were cut by sharp stones and the bark was torn off in some places, and this was done in order to get to the birds' nests. The distance between the notches is about five feet, so it can be assumed that the people here are very tall. We saw traces of some animals, similar to the imprints of tiger claws; (the sailors) brought the excrement of a four-legged animal (so they believed) and some beautiful resin that oozed from these trees and had the aroma of gumilak... Off the coast of the cape there were many herons and wild geese..."
Having left the anchorage, the ships moved further north and on December 4 passed the island, which was named Maria Island in honor of Van Diemen's daughter. Having passed by the Schaugen Islands and the Frey-sine Peninsula (Tasman decided that this was an island), the ships reached 4G34" south latitude on December 5. The coast turned to the northwest, and in this direction the ships could not advance due to headwinds. Therefore, it was decided was to leave the coastal waters and go east.
Tasman on his map connected the shore of Van Diemen's Land with the Earth

Lesson

Geographical location, history of discovery, relief and mineral resources of Australia

Goals and objectives of the lesson:introduce the physical and geographical position of Australia; introduce the history of the discovery and exploration of the continent; form an idea of ​​the relief and minerals. Continue to develop the ability to work with cards.

Equipment: k art of the hemispheres and physical map of Australia, plan for describing the FGP of the continent and its relief, table “Information about Australia”, table “Discovery of Australia”, portraits of researchers

During the classes

I. Organizational moment

II. Acquaintance with the physical and geographical position of the continent

It is located below us.
They're obviously walking upside down there,
It's a year turned inside out.
The gardens there bloom in October,
It's summer there in January, not in July,
Rivers flow there without water
(They disappear somewhere in the desert).
There are traces of wingless birds in the thickets,
There cats get snakes for food,
Animals are born from eggs,
And there dogs don’t know how to bark.
The trees themselves climb out of the bark,
There rabbits are worse than a flood,
Saves the south from the northern heat,
The capital has no population.
Australia is the opposite country.
Its source is on the London pier:
The road was cleared for predators
Exiles and convict people.
Australia is the opposite country.

(Galina Usova)

“...I swear to you that this region is the most curious in all globe! Its appearance, nature, plants, animals, climate... - all this surprised, surprises and will surprise everyone world scientists. Imagine, my friends, a continent that, when formed, rose from the sea waves not with its central part, but with its edges, like some kind of giant hoof; a continent where, perhaps, in the middle there is a half-evaporated inland sea; where the rivers are drying up more and more every day; where there is no moisture either in the air or in the soil; where trees annually lose not their leaves, but their bark; where the leaves face the sun not with their surface, but with their edges and do not provide shade; where the forest is often unable to burn; where stone slabs melt from rain; where the forests are short and the grasses are gigantic in height; where the animals are unusual; where quadrupeds have beaks; where the jumping kangaroo has paws of different lengths; where the sheep have pig heads,where foxes flutter from tree to tree; where the swans are black; where rats build their nests; where the birds amaze with the variety of their singing and their abilities: one imitates the striking of a clock, another imitates the clicking of the whip of a mail coach, the third imitates a grinder, the fourth strikes the seconds like a clock pendulum; There is one who laughs in the morning when the sun rises, and one who cries in the evening when it sets. The most bizarre, most illogical country that has ever existed! The earth is paradoxical, refuting the laws of nature! The botanist Grimard had every reason to express himself about it this way: “Here it is, this Australia, some kind of parody of world laws, or, rather, a challenge thrown in the face of the rest of the world!”...” (Jules Verne. “Children” Captain Grant")

The teacher begins the lesson by telling interesting facts:

The word “australis” translated into Russian means “southern”.

Australia is the smallest continent on Earth. Its area is 6 times smaller than the largest continent of Eurasia.

There are no active volcanoes here.

Australia is a continent of relics. There are many plants and animals here that are not found anywhere else.

Australia was the last to be settled and developed by Europeans. For a long time, the continent was cut off from the historical processes taking place in other parts of the world. Over many thousands of years, powerful centers of civilization were born in Africa, Asia, Europe, America, and the Stone Age still reigned in Australia. This is the most sparsely populated continent.

The entire continent is occupied by one state - Commonwealth of Australia.

Students independently make a description of the physical and geographical position of the continent according to this plan.

Plan for describing the physical and geographical position of the continent

1. The name of the continent and its dimensions. Determine the maximum length of the continent in kilometers from north to south and from west to east.

From north to south: 39 -10 = 29; 29 x 111 km (1 meridian arc – 111 km) = 3219 km

From west to east: 153-113 = 40; 40 x 107 km (1 parallel - 107 km) = 4280 km

2. The position of the continent relative to the equator and the prime meridian.In relation to the equator, the continent is entirely located in southern hemisphere, in relation to the prime meridian - entirely in the eastern hemisphere.

3. Extreme points and their geographical coordinates.The extreme points of the mainland: in the north - Cape York, in the south - Cape South East Point, the westernmost point - Cape Steep Point, in the east - Cape Byron.

4. Neighborhood with other continents.In the north it is separated from Eurasia by islands South-East Asia, the Indian Ocean in the west - from Africa, in the south - the Southern Ocean from Antarctica, in the east - the Pacific Ocean - from South America.

5. What and where the continent is washed.The coastline of Australia is generally poorly indented. It has the most complex outlines on the northern coast. If we travel along the seas around Australia according to the map, then, moving along the northern shores, from the Indian Ocean we will end up in the Arafura Sea, and then in the Gulf of Carpentaria, deeply cut into the land. Next, the travel route runs along the Cape York Peninsula, with its outline resembling a triangle, past the northernmost point of the mainland, Cape York, into the Torres Strait, separating Australia from the island of New Guinea. Now your course lies southeast into the waters of the Coral Sea, which belongs to the Pacific Ocean. Accumulations of corals formed the Great Barrier Reef off the eastern shores of the mainland - a uniquely beautiful creation of nature. It stretches along the coast for 2000 km from the Torres Strait to the South Tropic.

Leaving behind the Great Barrier Reef and the shallow Coral Sea, you move south along with the waters of the warm East Australian Current. The last one is left behind eastern point mainland - Cape Byron. The route continues into the waters of the Tasman Sea. The shores drop steeply to the water, and the depths increase faster than in the Coral Sea. Turning west, you will enter the Bass Strait, which separates the only large island of Tasmania from Australia. Once past South East Point, the southernmost point of the mainland, you enter the waters of the Great Australian Bight. The water in the bay is colder than on the eastern shores, since branches of the cold current of the Western Winds enter there. In the central part of the bay there is the most deep place off the coast of Australia. Its depth is 5853 m. Coming out of the waters of the largest bay, which does not protrude deeply into the mainland, you find yourself in an open Indian Ocean. Here is the westernmost point of the mainland - Cape Steep Point.

6. Conclusion about the geographical position of the continent.Conclusion: The continent's FGP influences many natural factors. This is one of the hottest continents, the driest. It receives 5 times less precipitation than Africa, 8 times less than South America. About half of the area is occupied by deserts and semi-deserts.

Filling out the previously drawn table “Information about the continents”.

PHYSICAL MINUTE

III. History of the discovery of Australia

As the story progresses, the “Discovery of Australia” table is filled in. Even ancient geographers suggested the existence of an unknown southern land south of the equator. In the 16th century cartographers depicted a huge “Terra australis incognita” - “Unknown Southern Land” on maps and globes in the southern hemisphere. Discovered by Magellan Tierra del Fuego was considered one of the protrusions of this unknown land,

In 1606 the Spaniard Luis Torres discovered the northernmost tip of the Australian Cape York Peninsula, and named the Torres Strait separating New Guinea from Cape York. When Torres informed the Spanish authorities about his discovery, it was decided to keep this discovery a secret, and for over 150 years no one knew about it. Almost at the same time as Torres, the Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon also saw the northern coast of Australia, entering the Gulf of Carpentaria. In 1642 Abel Tasman discovered the western coast of an unknown large island, which was named Tasmania. Subsequently, A. Tasman walked around Australia from the south and east and established that it was an independent continent.

In 1770, on the ship Endeavor (“Attempt”), an English navigator James Cook sailed to the east coast of Australia and declared it English proficiency. Soon a “penal colony” for criminals was organized here. Subsequently, free settlers appeared on the mainland. The conquest of the mainland began, accompanied by the extermination of the indigenous population. In a hundred years most of the aborigines were exterminated. The remaining indigenous people were driven to the interior desert territories of the mainland.

In the 19th century More than a dozen expeditions were equipped to explore the interior desert regions of the continent. For the first time in 1860, an Englishman managed to cross Australia from south to north Robert Burke . The expedition went from the city of Adelaide to the Gulf of Carpentaria. The development of Australia was facilitated by the discovery in the 19th century large deposits gold, as well as the presence on the mainland of convenient pastures for cattle breeding. Air John Edward, sheep farmer, in 1839-1840. In search of pastures, he explored the coast of the Great Australian Bight.Look at the map - what did he discover?(Lake Eyre and Torrens).Strzelecki Pavel Edmund, Polish emigrant, geographer and geologist by training. Discovered large deposits of gold and discovered the most high point Australia.Look at the map, what is the name of this mountain?(Kostsyushko, 2228 m.).

TO end of the 19th century V. basically the exploration of the mainland was completed. During the same period, England declared Australia its colony. Currently, the Commonwealth of Australia is an independent state.

"Discovery of Australia"

IV. Relief and minerals

Working with a tectonic map(atlas, pp. 8-11)

Remember which ancient continent Australia broke away from?(Gondwana). Using a tectonic map, determine what lies at the base of the continent?(most of it is an ancient platform that is part of the Indo-Australian lithospheric plate). This is due to the predominance of flat terrain. In the Paleozoic, when mountain-building processes were actively taking place on the Gondwana continent, an area of ​​ancient folding formed along one of the faults. Later, in the Cenozoic era, the medium-high mountains of the Great Dividing Range formed here. Over the course of a long history of development, the Australian continent has experienced uplift and subsidence. As a result of movements and the formation of faults, part of the land sank to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, and the islands of New Guinea and Tasmania separated.

Australia is the flattest continent. Most of it is a plain, the edges of which are raised, especially significantly in the east. Mountains occupy only 5% of the continent.

There are three main landforms in Australia: the Great Dividing Range, the Central Lowlands with prevailing heights of up to 100 m, and the Western Australian Plateau with average heights of 400-500 m.

Australia is the only continent where earthquakes and volcanism are not observed, since the boundaries of lithospheric plates are located far from the mainland.

Australia's subsoil is rich in minerals. Ore minerals, such as ores of non-ferrous and ferrous metals, owe their origin to the metamorphic and igneous rocks of the platform's basement. Their deposits are found in western and northern parts Australia. Deposits of hard and brown coal, oil and gas in south-eastern Australia are associated with sedimentary rocks.

V. Lesson summary

Who first discovered Australia?

What reasons led to the rapid development of the mainland?

Find on the mainland map geographical names, associated with the names of explorers and travelers.

Which continent was Australia formerly part of?

What lies at the base of the continent?

How many lithospheric plates are there at the base of the continent, what are they called?

Where does the collision of lithospheric plates occur?

What landforms are found on the mainland?

How are they distributed across the continent?

Determine the patterns of distribution of mineral resources on the continent

Are there mountain glaciers in Australia? (The Australian Alps have the most high part Greater Dividing Range – snow remains in shaded gorges)

VI. Homework: § 35

Australia is one of the most exotic English-speaking countries in the world. Thanks to its high standard of living and attractive immigration policies, many are considering it as a place to live or work. If you are learning English to move to Australia, either for work, study or pleasure, it will be useful to gain a basic understanding of the country's history.

Prehistoric Australia

About 50 thousand years ago southern mainland The first people arrived in Australia - the world's earliest sea travelers. Geologists believe that at that time the island of New Guinea in the north and Tasmania in the south were part of the continent.

After several thousand years, the continent began to be actively populated. The earliest archaeological discovery of human remains in Australia is the so-called Mungo man, who lived approximately 40 thousand years ago. From it, scientists determined that the first inhabitants of Australia were massive and tall people.

IN prehistoric period Australia was populated by people over several waves. About 5 thousand years ago, with another stream of settlers, the dingo dog appeared on the mainland - the only non-marsupial Australian predator. Only by the 2nd millennium BC did the Australian aborigines acquire their modern appearance, evolving and mixing with newly arrived settlers.

The Aborigines formed diverse tribes with their own languages, cultures, religions and traditions. At the time of the discovery of Australia by Europeans, about 500 tribes lived on the mainland, speaking about 250 different languages. None of them had a written language, so their history is poorly known. They used symbolic drawings, retelling ancient legends in them. These myths and archaeological finds are the only data that historians studying Australia can use.

Since people began to inhabit Australia quite a long time ago (for comparison, people arrived in America only 13 thousand years ago, a full 27 thousand years later) and did not experience the influence of the rest of the world before the arrival of Europeans, the Australian Aboriginal civilization is considered one of the oldest continuous cultures in the world.

European continental exploration

It is officially believed that Australia was discovered by the Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon in 1606. He sailed to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north of the mainland and landed on the Cape York Peninsula - the northernmost point of Australia, which is located only 160 kilometers from New Guinea. A year before him, the Spaniard Luis Vaez Torres swam in these waters, who passed very close to the Australian coast and even supposedly saw land on the horizon, but mistook it for another archipelago.

There are several other alternative theories for the discovery of Australia. According to one of them, Portuguese sailors discovered the mainland before Willem Janszoon. The flotilla under the leadership of de Siqueira explored the route to the Moluccas and sent several expeditions around the archipelago. One such expedition, led by Mendonça in 1522, supposedly visited the northwestern shores of Australia.

The theory of the early discovery of Australia seems plausible, since it was on the west coast that 16th century cannons were found in the 20th century. Unusual finds have been repeatedly discovered on the mainland, which can only be explained by the early voyages of Europeans to the Australian shores. However, these theories are considered controversial. In addition, the discovery of Australia remained unknown to Europe until the voyages of the Dutch.

Janszoon declared the found territories the possession of the Netherlands, although the Dutch never began to develop them. Over the next few decades, the Dutch continued to explore Australia. In 1616, Derk Hartog visited the west coast; three years later, Frederic de Houtman explored several hundred kilometers of coastline. In 1644, Abel Tasman began his famous sea voyages, during which he discovered New Zealand, Tasmania, Fiji and Tonga, and also proved that Australia is a separate continent.

The Dutch studied only the west coast of Australia, the rest coastline And interior lands remained unexplored until the voyages of James Cook a century later, in 1769. It was believed that New Holland (the first name of Australia) discovered by the Dutch did not belong to the hypothetical southern continent Terra Australis Incognita, the existence of which had been suspected since ancient times. New Holland was an inhospitable place with a difficult climate and hostile natives, so for a long time showed no interest.

In the mid-18th century, the British came up with the idea of ​​exiling convicts to the islands of the Southern Ocean or to a supposedly existing continent called the Unknown Southland. In 1769, English Lieutenant James Cook set sail on the ship Endeavor to Tahiti on a secret mission to find the Southern Continent and explore the shores of New Holland.

Cook sailed to the east coast of Australia and landed at Botany Bay. Having examined the coastal lands, he concluded that they were quite favorable for founding a colony. Cook then traveled along the coast in a northwesterly direction and found a strait between Australia and New Guinea (thus proving that this island was not part of the mainland). The navigator did not complete the task of finding the Southern Continent.

During his second circumnavigation of the world, Cook explored southern latitudes and came to the conclusion that there were no large lands in them except Australia. The dreams of Terra Australis were destroyed, but a free name remained. In 1814, the English navigator Matthew Flinders proposed calling New Holland Australia. By that time, colonies from several states already existed on the mainland, which did not immediately accept the proposal, but over time began to use this name. In 1824 it became official.

British colonization of Australia

Cook recommended Botany Bay for settlement. The first fleet with settlers set off here in 1787. These were convicts - but for the most part not malicious criminals, robbers and murderers, but former traders and farmers sentenced to short terms for minor crimes. Many of them were soon given pardon and allocated plots for farms. The rest of the settlers were infantrymen with their families, officers and other employees.

The ships were found near Botany Bay comfortable spot for colonization - Port Jackson Bay, where a settlement was founded in Sydney Cove. The date of creation of the colony - January 26, 1788 - later became national holiday, Happy Australia Day. A month later, the governor of the settlement officially announced the creation of a colony, which was called New South Wales. Locality became named after the British Home Secretary, Viscount Sydney. This is how the city of Sydney appeared - now the largest and most developed in Australia.

The governor of the colony tried to improve relations with the aborigines, helped convicts reform, and established trade and agriculture. The first years were difficult for the settlers: there was not enough food, the convicts had few professional skills, and new convicts arriving in the colony turned out to be sick and disabled after a long and difficult voyage. But the governor managed to develop the colony, and from 1791 its affairs began to go uphill.

Living conditions for convicts were harsh. They had to do a lot of work to create a colony: build houses and roads, help farmers. They starved and suffered severe punishments. But the pardoned prisoners remained in Australia, received their allotments and could employ convicts themselves. One of these former prisoners grew the first successful wheat crop in 1789. Soon the colony began to provide itself with food.

In 1793, the first free settlers arrived in Sydney (not counting the military guarding the convicts). They were given land free of charge, provided with agricultural equipment for the first time, and given the right to free movement and use of prison labor.

Mainland exploration

After the founding of the colony, exploration of Australia continued. Europeans used the services of local guides, so most trips were successful. In 1813, the Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth expedition traversed the Blue Mountains ranges west of Sydney and found extensive grazing lands. In 1824, the Hume and Howell expedition made many important discoveries, discovered the Murray River and its tributaries and opened up many new pastures.

In 1828, Charles Sturt discovered the Darling River and reached the point where the Murray River flows into the Great Australian Bight. Then a whole series of expeditions followed, filling in the gaps of previous research. European and Australian explorers retained many of the original place names instead of giving them their own. In 1839, Polish explorer Strzelecki climbed Australia's highest peak, Mount Kosciuszko in the Australian Alps.

In 1829, Great Britain claimed the entire western part of Australia. The colony of New South Wales was divided into several, the colonies of Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, Northern Territory, and Swan River appeared. Settlers gradually spread throughout the continent. The major cities of Melbourne and Brisbane were founded at this time.

The Aborigines, under the pressure of European colonists, retreated from the coasts inland. Their numbers were greatly reduced due to diseases brought by the settlers. In the mid-19th century, the entire indigenous population was moved to reservations, many by force.

By 1840, the tradition of sending convicts to Australia began to be forgotten, and after 1868 it was no longer practiced.

Golden fever

In the 1850s, Australia began Golden fever" The British authorities established licenses for gold mining, which did not please the gold miners. In 1854, prospectors from Ballarat launched what is now known as the Eureka Rebellion. The rebels created the Ballarat Reform League and presented a number of demands to the government: introduce universal suffrage, cancel gold mining licenses, and abolish property restrictions for parliamentary candidates.

The resistance of the gold miners was crushed, they were arrested and put on trial. But the court did not find the rebels guilty. Many of the miners' demands were satisfied: their licenses were canceled and they were given the right to appeal to parliament. The Eureka Rebellion stimulated the development of liberalism in Australia. This event became one of the key events in the history of the country.

In 1855, New South Wales gained the right to self-government, remaining part of the British Empire. Other Australian colonies soon followed. Their governments dealt with internal affairs, and foreign policy, defense and trade continued to be in charge of Great Britain.

The Gold Rush sparked an economic boom in Australia. The next few decades were prosperous for Australians. In the 1890s, the economic situation began to deteriorate, at the same time the labor movement began to grow, new political parties began to emerge, and the Australian colonies began to think about unification.

Commonwealth of Australia

For ten years, the colonies discussed the issue of unification and prepared to create a single country. In 1901, they created the Commonwealth of Australia, a federal state that was a dominion of the British Empire. In the early years, the capital of the Union was the city of Melbourne, but already in 1911, the future capital of Australia, the city of Canberra, began to be built on the specially designated Federal Capital Territory. In 1927, the city was completed and the Union government settled in it.

A little later, the Federation included several territories that had previously been subordinate to Great Britain: the islands of Norfolk, Cartier and Ashmore. It was assumed that New Zealand would join Australia, but it chose to seek independence from Great Britain on its own.

Australia's economy was heavily dependent on exports. The country had to import large quantities of grain and wool. The Great Depression, which began in the United States in 1929, and the subsequent global economic crisis seriously affected Australia. The unemployment rate rose to a record 29%.

In 1931, the British Parliament adopted the Statute of Westminster, which established the position of the dominions. According to it, the British dominions received full official independence, but retained the right of the British monarch to hold the post of head of state. Australia only ratified this statute in 1942, becoming effectively independent from Great Britain.

History of Australia after independence

Second World War boosted Australia's economy. The Australians received a promise of protection from the United States in the event of a Japanese attack, so they took part in hostilities without risk to themselves. After the war, many residents of dilapidated Europe decided to move to Australia. The Australian government encouraged immigration, wanting to increase the country's population and attract talented professionals.

By 1975, two million immigrants had arrived in Australia. Most of them are former residents of Great Britain and Ireland. Thus, most of the Australian population are native speakers of English, which has transformed into the Australian dialect. Official language the state does not.

In the 70s, the Australian government carried out a number of important reforms, the significance of which remains to this day: free higher education, abolition of compulsory military service, recognition of Aboriginal rights to land and others. From a former convict colony, Australia has become a highly developed country with one of the most high levels immigration.

The first stage of the voyage of Dutch sailors in the 17th century.

Until the 17th century Europeans received scattered information about Australia and New Guinea from Portuguese navigators. The year of the discovery of Australia is considered to be 1606, when the Dutch navigator W. Janszoon explored a section of the western coast of the Cape York Peninsula in the north of the continent. During the 17th century. The main discoveries were made by Dutch travelers, with the exception of the Spanish expedition of 1606, in which L. Torres discovered the strait between New Guinea and Australia (later named after him). Due to the priority of the Dutch, Australia was originally called New Holland.
In 1616, D. Hartog, heading to the island of Java, discovered a section of the western coast of the continent, the exploration of which was almost completely completed in 1618-22. The southern coast (its western part) was explored in 1627 by F. Theisen and P. Neits.
A. Tasman made two trips to Australia, the first to circumnavigate Australia from the south and prove that it is a separate continent. In 1642, his expedition discovered the island, which he named Van Diemen's Land in honor of the Dutch governor of the East Indies (then this island was renamed Tasmania), and the island "States Land" (present-day New Zealand). On a second voyage in 1644 he explored the northern and northwestern coasts of Australia.

The second stage of the English and French naval expeditions of the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries.

At the turn of the 18th century. The English navigator and pirate W. Dampier discovered a group of islands named after him off the coast of northwestern Australia. In 1770 during his first circumnavigation J. Cook examined the eastern coast of Australia and found out the island position of New Zealand.
In 1788, a colony for English convicts was founded in Sydney, then called Port Jackson.
In 1798, the English topographer D. Bass discovered the strait separating Tasmania from Australia (the strait was later named after him).
In 1797-1803, the English explorer M. Flinders walked around Tasmania, the entire continent, mapped the southern coast and the Great Barrier Reef, and surveyed the Gulf of Carpentaria. In 1814, he proposed calling the southern continent Australia instead of New Holland. Many geographical objects on the mainland and in the adjacent seas are named after him.
During the same period, a French expedition led by N. Boden discovered some islands and bays. F. King and D. Wicken completed work on exploring the coast of Australia in 1818-39.

The third stage was land expeditions of the first half of the 19th century.

Initially, during this period, due to the difficulties of overcoming the vast inland deserts, expeditions were concentrated mainly in coastal areas. C. Sturt and T. Mitchell passed through the Great Dividing Range, reaching vast plains, but without going deep into them, and explored the basin of the continent’s largest river, the Murray and its tributary, the Darling, in southeastern Australia.
In 1840, the Polish traveler P. Strzelecki discovered highest peak Australia, Kosciuszko.
The English explorer E. Eyre in 1841 made a passage along the southern coast from the city of Adelaide in the southeastern part of the mainland to King George Bay.
In the 40s exploration of the deserts of the Australian interior begins. Sturt in 1844-46 explored the sandy and rocky deserts in the southeastern part of the mainland. In 1844 -45, the German scientist L. Leichhardt crossed north-eastern Australia, crossed the Dawson, Mackenzie and other rivers, reached the interior of the Arnhem Land Peninsula, and then returned to Sydney by sea. In 1848 he new expedition went missing. An unsuccessful search for the expedition was undertaken by the Englishman O. Gregory, who studied the interior of the Arnhem Land Peninsula and crossed the eastern edge of the central deserts.

The fourth stage was inland expeditions of the second half of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The first to cross Australia from south to north, from Adelaide to the Gulf of Carpentaria, were English explorers R. Burke and W. Wills in 1860; on the way back, in the area of ​​Coopers Creek, Burke died.
The Scottish explorer J. Stewart crossed the mainland twice in 1862, making a great contribution to the study of the central regions. Subsequent expeditions of E. Giles (1872-73, 1875-76), J. Forrest (1869, 1870, 1874), D. Lindsay (1891), L. Wells (1896) and other English travelers explored the deserts of Central Australia in detail: Great Sandy, Gibson and Great Victoria Deserts.
In the first third of the 20th century, thanks to the work of mainly English geographers, the main little-studied areas in the interior of Australia were mapped.