John Gilbert (naturalist)
John Gilbert ( born March 14, 181 probably in England; ? † June 28, 1845 in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia ) was a naturalist and explorer. About his life was a long time nothing is known until 1938 several letters and diaries, which were in the estate of Ludwig Leichhardt, were rediscovered in England. In Alec Hugh Chisholm's book Strange New World. The Adventures of John Gilbert and Ludwig Leichhardt was Gilbert described as one of the great early ornithologists of Australia.
Life and work
John Gilbert's place of birth and year of birth are not known exactly. The information rich from 1810 to 1815. Gilbert worked as a preparator at the Zoological Society of London, where he met John Gould and his wife, Elizabeth, and in May 1838 took them to Australia. In the following years he collected natural history specimens that served as objects of study for Gould's later publications, including The Birds of Australia. On September 19, 1838 Gould and Gilbert arrived on board the " Parsee " the port of Hobart. After both had been working for several months in Tasmania, broke Gilbert on February 4, 1839 Western Australia, where he worked as an animal collector, especially in the area of Perth. In June 1840 Gilbert toured the Northern Territory and in March 1841 he sailed across Timor to Singapore. The end of September 1841, he sailed with a rich bird collection to London. In February 1842 he left England again to continue to operate as an explorer in Australia.
He reached Perth in July 1842 and remained the next 17 months in Western Australia. During his expeditions he laid back considerable distances and made some of his most interesting discoveries in the region of the Wongan Hills, about 160 km north-east of Perth. Gilbert was an excellent naturalist, and his records of birds, their life, their food, their singing and the names that they had received from the Aborigines, are of great interest and value. Gilbert collected 432 skins of birds and 318 mammal specimens, among which 36 new Vogeltaxa and 22 new Säugetiertaxa were. In addition, he is regarded as the first Western investigator who was able to paradise parakeet, an extinct since 1928 parrot observe.
End of January 1844, Gilbert in Sydney. During the next six months he was on an expedition to the Darling Downs in Queensland. In October 1844 Gilbert was allowed to take part in the first expedition of the Prussian Australia Nachforschers Ludwig Leichhardt to Port Essington. Among the first ten participants were the explorer John Roper, the botanist James Snowden Calvert, the prisoner William Phillips and the sixteen year old John Murphy. In November 1844 Leichhardt noted that the team was too large. He made the decision to dismiss the last occurred in the expedition two participants. The botanist Christopher Pemberton Hodgson joined for Gilbert back from the trip and he and the African-American chef Caleb they left. Based on his experiences in the outback Gilbert was recognized by the expedition members as deputy leader of the expedition. John Murphy was too young to be of great importance for the expedition and the two Aboriginal Charles Fisher and Harry Brown were aware of their importance for the expedition. This was not recognized and they rebelled. However, they drew when they were expelled from the camp again.
Gilbert was killed on June 28, 1845 during a night of Racheakts Kokopera Aborigines by a flying spear. Previously, the two Aboriginal Charles Fisher and Harry Brown had molested some women of the attacking tribe. Roper and Calvert were seriously wounded by blocking kicks, but could be rescued. Gilbert was buried in close to the action on the Gulf of Carpentaria. His grave was not rediscovered until today. Leichhardt reached on December 17, 1845 Port Essington.
Gilbert's travel diary about the Leichhardt expedition
On September 20, 1938, the travel diary of the first Leichhardt expedition in London was discovered. The Australian journalist, writer and amateur ornithologist Alec Hugh Chisholm sighted and brought this 1941 book Strange New World. The Adventure of John Gilbert and Ludwig Leichhardt out. In this paper, the life of Gilbert is described and illuminated the expedition history, and Leichhardt in a critical light.
Honors
Leichhardt named the Gilbert River, the Gilbert and the Gilbert Range Dome in the Peak Range by John Gilbert; Furthermore, the Gilbert - rabbit kangaroo ( Potorous gilbertii ) is named after him. The British colonists put a monument to him in St. James 's Church, Sydney. Memorials to him were erected in Brisbane and on the Roper River and a Bronzeplakete in Drakesbrook in Western Australia mounted. Furthermore, a commercial airliner of Trans Australia Airlines bore his name.