Rylstone, New South Wales
Rylstone is a small town in New South Wales, Australia, in the Central Tablelands region within the Mid-Western Regional Council local government area. It is located on the Bylong Valley Way road route. At the 2016 census, Rylstone had a population of 650 people; the name'Rylstone' has no clear origin. Michael Hayes who built the Shamrock Hotel and other buildings at The Junction claims responsibility. On travelling through the area he mentioned sleeping on'that Ryle Stone' his Irish accent converting what was said'Royal Stone' A small village known as Rylstone in Yorkshire England is near to where wool was sent from properties in the Rylstone area. Another tale suggests; this weapon being used when the Scots were at war with the Picts and Scottish shepherds built their huts at the location of the current village of Rylstone. A petition was sent to Governor Gipps asking for a village to be called Tong Bong to be established at the present site of Rylstone. Governor Gipps granted permission for the village to be surveyed but he insisted that the village be called Rylstone and not Tong Bong.
There is no evidence of the English village of Rylstone. Early maps spell Rylstone as Rylestone. Several early explorers and settler explorers travelled this area in the early 1800s. Several mountains in the area commemorate their journeys through the Glen Alice Valley and up the Turon River. James Blackman jnr. explored a route from Bathurst to the Cudgegong River and present site of Rylstone in 1820. Allan Cunningham, the botanist and explorer, on his first expedition to find a route from Bathurst to the Liverpool Plains noted in his diary in November 1822 being in the Tabrabucka area and on the second expedition 18 April 1823 passing through Dabee; the district was known as Dabee. There are many contemporary newspaper references to the town being referred to as Ryalston in the period 1846 to mid-1850s referred to as Ryalstone during the late 1850s. Rylstone town was laid out in 1846 by surveyor Davidson. By the 1850s Rylstone was becoming a well established town with post office, school and police lock-up.
The Rylstone district was declared as a police district in 1854. Rylstone was formally proclaimed a town on 20 March 1885. On 9 June 1884 the railway was opened to Rylstone, this changed the status of Rylstone village to that of a town; the railway yard included a goods shed, trucking yards, turntable. Notably, Henry Lawson's father, Niels Hertzberg Larsen, helped build the timber railway station; the line was extended from Rylstone to Mudgee and this section was opened on 10 September 1884. Rylstone is located on the Wallerawang to Gwabegar branch line. In April 1895 a railway telephone line was installed between Wallerawang and Mudgee with Rylstone as an intermediate telephone point; the telephone was an important safety feature on this railway due to the steep cliffs and tunnels that occur on both sides of Rylstone allowing quick and clear communication of problems. The railway line through Rylstone was closed on 2 March 1992 and remain closed for 8 years, the NSW Government spent $11 million to resleeper the track, repair bridges, level crossings reopening the line on 2 September 2000, the line was again closed 7 years on 30 June 2007, the line remains closed.
On 24 October 2017 the NSW State Government announced that $1.1 million would be provided to reinstate the 8km rail link between Kandos and Rylstone, thus enabling tourist trains to access the resulting ‘Kandos-Rylstone Rail Heritage Precinct’. Refurbishment work, which includes replacing 3,500 old timber sleepers with long-life steel, is expected to commence in April 2018 and continue for six months. Four road bridges have spanned the Cudgegong River; the first bridge was a suspension bridge, washed away by floods around 1867. This was followed by a second bridge of two spans built by a Mr Hayden soon after the flood; this second bridge was alongside the first bridge at the end of Hall Street. A third bridge built by Mr Eddy Fitzgerald replaced the second in 1890 and was a little further up the River; the fourth bridge, the only one remaining, still used today was built in 1948 to line up with the Bylong Road. A railway bridge spans the Cudgegong River 100 metres upriver of the present road bridge.
This apart from upgrading works, to add additional centre pillars, is the original structure built during the construction of the line. By 1868 there were four Hotels, the Rylstone Hotel, Bridge View and the Globe; the Rylstone and Globe Hotels remain in business. The Shamrock Hotel was located on the southern side of the railway bridge and was built by Michael Hayes in 1885 closing in 1890; the local indigenous Aboriginals were the Dabee tribe and they in turn were part of the broader Wiradjuri group of people. Some of the localities in the area are derivations of Aboriginal words. Lue believed to be pronounced in the Aboriginal language like Loowee Mudgee believed to derive from Moothi meaning nest in the hills Dabee - name of the local Aboriginal Tribe and the Fitzgerald's property was named after Wollemi - is derived from an aboriginal word meaning "watch out" or "look around you" Cudgegong - meaning red hill, noted for the red clay used by the Abor
Bylong Valley Way
Bylong Valley Way is a New South Wales country road linking the Golden Highway near Sandy Hollow to the Castlereagh Highway near Ilford. It is named after the Bylong Valley. In conjunction with the Bathurst-Ilford Road to Bathurst, this quiet, scenic route provides a leisurely alternative to going through Sydney to travel between the Hunter Region and Central Tablelands; the part of the Bylong Valley Way east of Bylong is designated MR 208. At a T-intersection near the railway level crossing just north of the village of Bylong, MR 208 turns off towards Ulan, following the Ulan railway line to the west while the Bylong Valley Way becomes MR 215 as it turns south to pass through Bylong and Kandos. Access to the Wollemi National Park and Goulburn River National Park is available at various points along the road between the Golden Highway and Bylong. Over Coxs Gap, the Bylong Valley Way is flanked by the two national parks. Camping areas are available in the Wollemi National Park on the western side of Coxs Gap, the Phipps Cutting picnic area between Baerami and Widden Creek provides an entry point for hiking in the Wollemi National Park.
Following completion of sealing of the road, The Muswellbrook Chamber of Commerce and Industry created a web site for the road, to promote it as a tourist route. The section of the Bylong Valley Way east of Bylong is part of two separately promoted tourist routes. A self-drive tour loop route originating in Sandy Hollow, promoted as Upper Hunter Tourist Drive number 4, uses this section of road to travel west turns north on other local roads to rejoin the Golden Highway; the Phipps Cutting picnic area is shown as a rest area on that route. The Tablelands Way tourist route between Canberra and Muswellbrook uses this section of the Bylong Valley Way as part of the route between Mudgee and Muswellbrook; the Bylong Valley Way was not sealed in the Mid-Western Regional Council area until February 2009. Sealing of the road had been a political issue for decades. At the beginning of 2007, there were four sections of unsealed road totalling 32 kilometres. Two sections were between Coxs Bylong with only 850 metres of sealed road between them.
The other two were south of Bylong on the way towards Rylstone, where two kilometres had been sealed a few years earlier, converting one long unsealed section to two shorter ones. On 13 December 2006, The federal government announced A$2 million of Auslink funding towards the $4.1 million cost of completion of sealing of the Bylong Valley Way. Under the announced funding arrangement, the New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority contributed $900,000 and the Mid-Western Regional Council was to contribute the remaining $1.2 million. The overall cost exceed the budgeted $4.1 million, with the council having to cover the overrun. The sealing work was carried out by Mid-Western Regional Council and was completed in three stages: March 2007 to June 2007 Sealing of two sections totalling six kilometres south of Bylong Widening a total of nine kilometres of remaining unsealed road in preparation for sealing in the stages July 2007 to June 2008 Sealing of two remaining unsealed sections south of Bylong totalling 12.42 kilometres Sealing of one section one kilometre long adjacent to existing sealed section east of Bylong Preparatory works for stage three July 2008 to March 2009 Completion of sealing, consisting of two sections east of Bylong totalling 12.6 kilometres The dilapidated timber sections of the Kirks Bridge, crossing Baerami Creek at Baerami were demolished and were planned to be replaced with new concrete sections by 31 August 2007.
Flooding during the June 2007 Hunter Region and Central Coast storms delayed the work by around a month. The bridge had been rebuilt, with both buttresses and two spans at one end having been reconstructed in concrete. Muswellbrook Shire Council maintained a temporary deviation on private property for several years to allow access during bridgework and for heavy vehicles. After the bridge was reopened, that deviation was removed and the land returned to its owner; the single-lane timber bridge over Widden Creek is to be replaced. Muswellbrook Shire Council had committed to spend $480,000 by 30 June 2007 to Manage the investigation and construction works but the discovery of a serious problem on Kirks Bridge saw that money diverted to the more urgent project. Muswellbrook Shire Council now plan to replace the Widden Creek bridge by 30 June 2009 at a cost of A$1.4 Million. Once the Widden Creek bridge is replaced, the 38 tonne load limit will be lifted, allowing heavy vehicles to again use this route.
Mid-Western Regional council plan to replace the single lane Carwell Bridge between Kandos and Ilford between mid-2009 and mid-2010. The Sandy Hollow–Gulgong railway line and part of the Merriwa railway line, which form the Australian Rail Track Corporation's Ulan line between Muswellbrook and Gulgong, follow the same valleys as the Bylong Valley Way from near the Golden Highway to near Bylong, where the railway line continues west as the road turns south; the Ulan line crosses the road three times, twice at level crossings and once on a bridge over the road. One level crossing is close to the Golden Highway; the railway bridge is on the western side between the level crossings. The Gwabegar railway line crosses the road on at a level crossing the northern side of Rylstone. All three of the level crossings have flashing warning lights but not boom gates. Highways in Australia List of highways in New South Wales Media related to Bylong Valley Way at Wikimedia Commons
Hawkesbury River
The Hawkesbury River, is a semi–mature tide dominated drowned valley estuary located to the west and north of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The Hawkesbury River and its associated main tributary, the Nepean River encircle the metropolitan region of Sydney; the Hawkesbury River has its origin at the confluence of the Nepean River and the Grose River, to the north of Penrith and travels for 120 kilometres in a north–easterly and south–easterly direction to its mouth at Broken Bay, about 15 kilometres from the Tasman Sea. The Hawkesbury River is the main tributary of Broken Bay. Secondary tributaries include Brisbane Water and Pittwater, that together with the Hawkesbury River flow into the Tasman Sea at Barrenjoey Head; the total catchment area of the river is 21,624 square kilometres and the area is administered by the Hawkesbury–Nepean Catchment Management Authority. The land adjacent to the Hawkesbury River was occupied by the Darkinjung, Darug and Kuringgai Aboriginal peoples, they used the river as a source of a place for trade.
The headwaters of the Hawkesbury River, the Avon River, the Cataract River, the Cordeaux River, rise only a few miles from the sea, about 80 kilometres south of Sydney. These streams start on the inland-facing slopes of the plateau which forms the escarpment behind Wollongong. Flowing north-west, away from the sea, these streams combine to form the Nepean River, flow north past the towns of Camden and Penrith. Near Penrith, the Warragamba River emerges from its canyon through the Blue Mountains and joins the Nepean; the Warragamba, formed by the joining of the Wollondilly River, the Nattai River, the Kowmung River and Coxs River drains a broad region of New South Wales on the eastern side of the Great Dividing Range. The other principal component of the upper Hawkesbury river system, the Grose River, rises in the area of Mount Victoria in the Blue Mountains. Once formed, the Hawkesbury River proper flows northwards, albeit with a significant number of meanders; the river passes the towns of Richmond and Windsor, which are the largest settlements on the river.
At Windsor, the river is joined by the South Creek, which drains much of the urban runoff in Sydney's western suburbs that does not fall into the Parramatta River catchment. As it flows north, it enters a more rural area, with only small settlements on the river. On this stretch it passes Lower Portland, where it is joined by the Colo River; the Colo River and its tributaries drain the northern section of the Blue Mountains. From Lower Portland, the Hawkesbury River continues flowing northwards to the small community of Wisemans Ferry where it is joined by the Macdonald River. Here its course turns eastwards and the surrounding landscape becomes steeper and more rugged. At Spencer, Mangrove Creek joins the river from the north. From here to the river mouth, road access to the river is limited to a few points. At Milsons Passage, the river is joined by Berowra Creek from the south. In the area around Brooklyn the river is crossed by the major road and rail services that follow the coast north from Sydney.
The river reaches the ocean at Broken Bay. From the confluence of the Nepean and Grose Rivers to the sea, the Hawkesbury River has a total length of some 120 kilometres. Islands in the Hawkesbury River include, in order going downstream are Barr Island, Milson Island, Peat Island, Spectacle Island, Long Island, Dangar Island. Despite forming the effective boundary of the metropolitan region of Sydney for its entire length, there are few fixed crossings of the Hawkesbury River proper. Going downstream, these comprise: In the lower reaches of the river there are a few passenger ferries that cross the river; these include the Palm Beach Ferry service from Palm Beach to Ettalong and Wagstaffe, the Hawkesbury River Ferries service from Brooklyn to Dangar Island and Little Wobby. The Aboriginal name for the river was published as Deerubbun in 1870; the main Aboriginal tribe inhabiting the area was the Guringai or Eora, the Wannungine of the coastal area inhabited and exploited the lands of the lower reaches.
Included the Darkinung people, whose lands were extensive on the lower Hawkesbury to Mangrove Creek, upper Hawkesbury, inland Hunter and lower Blue Mountains. It has been regarded that the Guringai name for the Hawkesbury was'Van Rupen'. In 1789 two expeditions explored the Hawkesbury to the northwest of Sydney and the Nepean River to the southwest, it took about three years to realise. Hawkesbury River was one of the pivotal positions of the Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars, a series of skirmishes and battles between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the resisting Indigenous clans that took place between late 1780s and late 1810s; the Hawkesbury River was one of the major transportation routes for transporting food from the surrounding area to Sydney during the 1800s. Boats would wait in the protection of Broken Bay and Pittwater, until favourable weather allowed them to make the ocean journey to Sydney Heads. With the opening of the railway from Sydney to Windsor in 1864, farm produce could be shipped upriver for onward transportation by train.
However, by the 1880s the river had become silted up between Sackville and Windsor, Sackville became the head of navigation for sea-going vessels. Until the end of the 19th century coastal steamers linked Sackville to Sydney; the Hawkesbury River was named by Governor Phillip in June 1789, after Charles Jenkinson, 1st Earl of Liverpool, who at that time was titled Baron Hawkesbury, after the Cotswolds village of Hawkesbury Upton in England, where the Jenkinsons stil
World Heritage Site
A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area, selected by the United Nations Educational and Cultural Organization as having cultural, scientific or other form of significance, is protected by international treaties. The sites are judged important to the collective interests of humanity. To be selected, a World Heritage Site must be an classified landmark, unique in some respect as a geographically and identifiable place having special cultural or physical significance, it may signify a remarkable accomplishment of humanity, serve as evidence of our intellectual history on the planet. The sites are intended for practical conservation for posterity, which otherwise would be subject to risk from human or animal trespassing, unmonitored/uncontrolled/unrestricted access, or threat from local administrative negligence. Sites are demarcated by UNESCO as protected zones; the list is maintained by the international World Heritage Program administered by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, composed of 21 "states parties" that are elected by their General Assembly.
The programme catalogues and conserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common culture and heritage of humanity. Under certain conditions, listed sites can obtain funds from the World Heritage Fund; the program began with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World's Cultural and Natural Heritage, adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO on 16 November 1972. Since 193 state parties have ratified the convention, making it one of the most recognized international agreements and the world's most popular cultural program; as of July 2018, a total of 1,092 World Heritage Sites exist across 167 countries. Italy, with 54 sites, has the most of any country, followed by China, France, Germany and Mexico. In 1954, the government of Egypt decided to build the new Aswan High Dam, whose resulting future reservoir would inundate a large stretch of the Nile valley containing cultural treasures of ancient Egypt and ancient Nubia. In 1959, the governments of Egypt and Sudan requested UNESCO to assist their countries to protect and rescue the endangered monuments and sites.
In 1960, the Director-General of UNESCO launched an appeal to the member states for an International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia. This appeal resulted in the excavation and recording of hundreds of sites, the recovery of thousands of objects, as well as the salvage and relocation to higher ground of a number of important temples, the most famous of which are the temple complexes of Abu Simbel and Philae; the campaign, which ended in 1980, was considered a success. As tokens of its gratitude to countries which contributed to the campaign's success, Egypt donated four temples: the Temple of Dendur was moved to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Temple of Debod was moved to the Parque del Oeste in Madrid, the Temple of Taffeh was moved to the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in the Netherlands, the Temple of Ellesyia to Museo Egizio in Turin; the project cost $80 million, about $40 million of, collected from 50 countries. The project's success led to other safeguarding campaigns: saving Venice and its lagoon in Italy, the ruins of Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan, the Borobodur Temple Compounds in Indonesia.
UNESCO initiated, with the International Council on Monuments and Sites, a draft convention to protect the common cultural heritage of humanity. The United States initiated the idea of cultural conservation with nature conservation; the White House conference in 1965 called for a "World Heritage Trust" to preserve "the world's superb natural and scenic areas and historic sites for the present and the future of the entire world citizenry". The International Union for Conservation of Nature developed similar proposals in 1968, they were presented in 1972 to the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm. Under the World Heritage Committee, signatory countries are required to produce and submit periodic data reporting providing the World Heritage Committee with an overview of each participating nation's implementation of the World Heritage Convention and a "snapshot" of current conditions at World Heritage properties. A single text was agreed on by all parties, the "Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage" was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO on 16 November 1972.
The Convention came into force on 17 December 1975. As of May 2017, it has been ratified by 193 states parties, including 189 UN member states plus the Cook Islands, the Holy See and the State of Palestine. Only four UN member states have not ratified the Convention: Liechtenstein, Nauru and Tuvalu. A country must first list its significant natural sites. A country may not nominate sites. Next, it can place sites selected from that list into a Nomination File; the Nomination File is evaluated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites and the World Conservation Union. These bodies make their recommendations to the World Heritage Committee; the Committee meets once per year to determine whether or not to inscribe each nominated property on the World Heritage List and sometimes defers or refers the decision to request more information from the country which nominated the site. There are ten selection criteria – a site must meet at least one of them to be included on the list
Sedimentary rock
Sedimentary rocks are types of rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of small particules and subsequent cementation of mineral or organic particles on the floor of oceans or other bodies of water at the Earth's surface. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes; the particles that form a sedimentary rock are called sediment, may be composed of geological detritus or biological detritus. Before being deposited, the geological detritus was formed by weathering and erosion from the source area, transported to the place of deposition by water, ice, mass movement or glaciers, which are called agents of denudation. Biological detritus was formed by bodies and parts of dead aquatic organisms, as well as their fecal mass, suspended in water and piling up on the floor of water bodies. Sedimentation may occur as dissolved minerals precipitate from water solution; the sedimentary rock cover of the continents of the Earth's crust is extensive, but the total contribution of sedimentary rocks is estimated to be only 8% of the total volume of the crust.
Sedimentary rocks are only a thin veneer over a crust consisting of igneous and metamorphic rocks. Sedimentary rocks are deposited in layers as strata; the study of sedimentary rocks and rock strata provides information about the subsurface, useful for civil engineering, for example in the construction of roads, tunnels, canals or other structures. Sedimentary rocks are important sources of natural resources like coal, fossil fuels, drinking water or ores; the study of the sequence of sedimentary rock strata is the main source for an understanding of the Earth's history, including palaeogeography and the history of life. The scientific discipline that studies the properties and origin of sedimentary rocks is called sedimentology. Sedimentology is part of both geology and physical geography and overlaps with other disciplines in the Earth sciences, such as pedology, geomorphology and structural geology. Sedimentary rocks have been found on Mars. Sedimentary rocks can be subdivided into four groups based on the processes responsible for their formation: clastic sedimentary rocks, biochemical sedimentary rocks, chemical sedimentary rocks, a fourth category for "other" sedimentary rocks formed by impacts and other minor processes.
Clastic sedimentary rocks are composed of other rock fragments that were cemented by silicate minerals. Clastic rocks are composed of quartz, rock fragments, clay minerals, mica. Clastic sedimentary rocks, are subdivided according to the dominant particle size. Most geologists use the Udden-Wentworth grain size scale and divide unconsolidated sediment into three fractions: gravel and mud; the classification of clastic sedimentary rocks parallels this scheme. This tripartite subdivision is mirrored by the broad categories of rudites and lutites in older literature; the subdivision of these three broad categories is based on differences in clast shape, grain size or texture. Conglomerates are dominantly composed of rounded gravel, while breccias are composed of dominantly angular gravel. Sandstone classification schemes vary but most geologists have adopted the Dott scheme, which uses the relative abundance of quartz and lithic framework grains and the abundance of a muddy matrix between the larger grains.
Composition of framework grains The relative abundance of sand-sized framework grains determines the first word in a sandstone name. Naming depends on the dominance of the three most abundant components quartz, feldspar, or the lithic fragments that originated from other rocks. All other minerals are considered accessories and not used in the naming of the rock, regardless of abundance. Quartz sandstones have >90% quartz grains Feldspathic sandstones have <90% quartz grains and more feldspar grains than lithic grains Lithic sandstones have <90% quartz grains and more lithic grains than feldspar grainsAbundance of muddy matrix material between sand grains When sand-sized particles are deposited, the space between the grains either remains open or is filled with mud. "Clean" sandstones with open pore space are called arenites. Muddy sandstones with abundant muddy matrix are called wackes. Six sandstone names are possible using the descriptors for grain composition and the amount of matrix. For example, a quartz arenite would be composed of quartz grains and have little or no clayey matrix between the grains, a lithic wacke would have abundant lithic grains and abundant muddy matrix, etc.
Although the Dott classification scheme is used by sedimentologists, common names like greywacke and quartz sandstone are still used by non-specialists and in popular literature. Mudrocks are sedimentary rocks composed of at least 50% silt- and clay-sized particles; these fine-grained particles are transported by turbulent flow in water or air, deposited as the flow calms and the particles settle out of suspension. Most authors presently
Australia
Australia the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area; the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea and East Timor to the north. The population of 25 million is urbanised and concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Australia's capital is Canberra, its largest city is Sydney; the country's other major metropolitan areas are Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians for about 60,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, it is documented. After the European exploration of the continent by Dutch explorers in 1606, who named it New Holland, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770 and settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788, a date which became Australia's national day; the population grew in subsequent decades, by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored and an additional five self-governing crown colonies established.
On 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated. Australia has since maintained a stable liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy, comprising six states and ten territories. Being the oldest and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils, Australia has a landmass of 7,617,930 square kilometres. A megadiverse country, its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east and mountain ranges in the south-east. A gold rush began in Australia in the early 1850s, its population density, 2.8 inhabitants per square kilometre, remains among the lowest in the world. Australia generates its income from various sources including mining-related exports, telecommunications and manufacturing. Indigenous Australian rock art is the oldest and richest in the world, dating as far back as 60,000 years and spread across hundreds of thousands of sites. Australia is a developed country, with the world's 14th-largest economy.
It has a high-income economy, with the world's tenth-highest per capita income. It is a regional power, has the world's 13th-highest military expenditure. Australia has the world's ninth-largest immigrant population, with immigrants accounting for 26% of the population. Having the third-highest human development index and the eighth-highest ranked democracy globally, the country ranks in quality of life, education, economic freedom, civil liberties and political rights, with all its major cities faring well in global comparative livability surveys. Australia is a member of the United Nations, G20, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, World Trade Organization, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Pacific Islands Forum and the ASEAN Plus Six mechanism; the name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis, a name used for a hypothetical continent in the Southern Hemisphere since ancient times. When Europeans first began visiting and mapping Australia in the 17th century, the name Terra Australis was applied to the new territories.
Until the early 19th century, Australia was best known as "New Holland", a name first applied by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1644 and subsequently anglicised. Terra Australis still saw occasional usage, such as in scientific texts; the name Australia was popularised by the explorer Matthew Flinders, who said it was "more agreeable to the ear, an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth". The first time that Australia appears to have been used was in April 1817, when Governor Lachlan Macquarie acknowledged the receipt of Flinders' charts of Australia from Lord Bathurst. In December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office. In 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known by that name; the first official published use of the new name came with the publication in 1830 of The Australia Directory by the Hydrographic Office. Colloquial names for Australia include "Oz" and "the Land Down Under". Other epithets include "the Great Southern Land", "the Lucky Country", "the Sunburnt Country", "the Wide Brown Land".
The latter two both derive from Dorothea Mackellar's 1908 poem "My Country". Human habitation of the Australian continent is estimated to have begun around 65,000 to 70,000 years ago, with the migration of people by land bridges and short sea-crossings from what is now Southeast Asia; these first inhabitants were the ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. Aboriginal Australian culture is one of the oldest continual civilisations on earth. At the time of first European contact, most Indigenous Australians were hunter-gatherers with complex economies and societies. Recent archaeological finds suggest. Indigenous Australians have an oral culture with spiritual values based on reverence for the land and a belief in the Dreamtime; the Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, obtained their livelihood from seasonal horticulture and the resources of their reefs and seas. The northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited s
Bird
Birds known as Aves, are a group of endothermic vertebrates, characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, a strong yet lightweight skeleton. Birds range in size from the 5 cm bee hummingbird to the 2.75 m ostrich. They rank as the world's most numerically-successful class of tetrapods, with ten thousand living species, more than half of these being passerines, sometimes known as perching birds. Birds have wings which are less developed depending on the species. Wings, which evolved from forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the loss of flight in flightless birds, including ratites and diverse endemic island species of birds; the digestive and respiratory systems of birds are uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments seabirds and some waterbirds, have further evolved for swimming; the fossil record demonstrates that birds are modern feathered dinosaurs, having evolved from earlier feathered dinosaurs within the theropod group, which are traditionally placed within the saurischian dinosaurs.
The closest living relatives of birds are the crocodilians. Primitive bird-like dinosaurs that lie outside class Aves proper, in the broader group Avialae, have been found dating back to the mid-Jurassic period, around 170 million years ago. Many of these early "stem-birds", such as Archaeopteryx, were not yet capable of powered flight, many retained primitive characteristics like toothy jaws in place of beaks, long bony tails. DNA-based evidence finds that birds diversified around the time of the Cretaceous–Palaeogene extinction event 66 million years ago, which killed off the pterosaurs and all the non-avian dinosaur lineages, but birds those in the southern continents, survived this event and migrated to other parts of the world while diversifying during periods of global cooling. This makes them the sole surviving dinosaurs according to cladistics; some birds corvids and parrots, are among the most intelligent animals. Many species annually migrate great distances. Birds are social, communicating with visual signals and bird songs, participating in such social behaviours as cooperative breeding and hunting and mobbing of predators.
The vast majority of bird species are monogamous for one breeding season at a time, sometimes for years, but for life. Other species have breeding systems that are polygynous or polyandrous. Birds produce offspring by laying eggs, they are laid in a nest and incubated by the parents. Most birds have an extended period of parental care after hatching; some birds, such as hens, lay eggs when not fertilised, though unfertilised eggs do not produce offspring. Many species of birds are economically important as food for human consumption and raw material in manufacturing, with domesticated and undomesticated birds being important sources of eggs and feathers. Songbirds and other species are popular as pets. Guano is harvested for use as a fertiliser. Birds prominently figure throughout human culture. About 120–130 species have become extinct due to human activity since the 17th century, hundreds more before then. Human activity threatens about 1,200 bird species with extinction, though efforts are underway to protect them.
Recreational birdwatching is an important part of the ecotourism industry. The first classification of birds was developed by Francis Willughby and John Ray in their 1676 volume Ornithologiae. Carl Linnaeus modified that work in 1758 to devise the taxonomic classification system in use. Birds are categorised as the biological class Aves in Linnaean taxonomy. Phylogenetic taxonomy places Aves in the dinosaur clade Theropoda. Aves and a sister group, the clade Crocodilia, contain the only living representatives of the reptile clade Archosauria. During the late 1990s, Aves was most defined phylogenetically as all descendants of the most recent common ancestor of modern birds and Archaeopteryx lithographica. However, an earlier definition proposed by Jacques Gauthier gained wide currency in the 21st century, is used by many scientists including adherents of the Phylocode system. Gauthier defined Aves to include only the crown group of the set of modern birds; this was done by excluding most groups known only from fossils, assigning them, instead, to the Avialae, in part to avoid the uncertainties about the placement of Archaeopteryx in relation to animals traditionally thought of as theropod dinosaurs.
Gauthier identified four different definitions for the same biological name "Aves", a problem. Gauthier proposed to reserve the term Aves only for the crown group consisting of the last common ancestor of all living birds and all of its descendants, which corresponds to meaning number 4 below, he assigned other names to the other groups. Aves can mean all archosaurs closer to birds than to crocodiles Aves can mean those advanced archosaurs with feathers Aves can mean those feathered dinosaurs that fly Aves can mean the last common ancestor of all the living birds and all of its descendants (a "c
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