Remarkable Reverend Clarke, The: Life and Times of the Father of Australian Geology

Geology. pp. 292 First Edition #0320 (Some rubbing to bottom of cloth.)

Clarke left his mark in New South Wales as a geologist rather than as a churchman. In his spare time he moved out from Sydney and Parramatta in a widening arc and collected rocks and fossils, sending many to Sedgwick and publishing his observations in British scientific journals and the Tasmanian Journal of Natural Science. Clarke early predicted the colony’s mineral wealth. In 1841, chipping the quartziferous slates near Hartley in the Blue Mountains, he discovered particles of gold and later added evidence from Bathurst to the Liverpool Range that the country would be found ‘abundantly rich in gold’. In April 1844 he told Governor