Page:The life of Matthew Flinders.djvu/234

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THE INVESTIGATOR

age. Like the gusty swashbuckler, Dugald Dalgetty, he had been educated at the Marischal College, Aberdeen. For a few years he served as ensign and assistant surgeon of a Scottish regiment, the Fife Fencibles. Always a keen botanist, he found a ready friend in Banks, who promised to recommend him "for the purpose of exploring the natural history, amongst other things." His salary was £420 a year, and he earned it by admirable service. Brown remained in Australia for two years after the discovery voyage, and his great ', which won the praise of Humboldt, is a classic monument to the extent and value of his researches.

William Westall was appointed landscape and figure draftsman to the expedition at a salary of £315 per annum. The nine fine engravings which adorn the Voyage to Terra Australis are his work. He was but a youth of nineteen when he made this voyage. Afterwards he attained repute as a landscape painter, and was elected as Associate of the Royal Academy. One hundred and thirty-eight of his drawings made on the Investigator are preserved.

Ferdinand Bauer was appointed botanical draftsman to the expedition at a salary of £315. He was an Austrian, forty years of age, an enthusiast in his work, and a man of uncommon industry. He made 1600 botanical drawings which, in Robert Brown's opinion, were "for beauty, accuracy and completion of detail unequalled in this or in any other country in Europe." Bauer's, published in 1814, consisted of plates which were drawn, engraved and coloured by his own hand. Flinders formed a very high opinion of the capacity of both Brown and Bauer. "It is fortunate for science," he wrote to Banks "that two men of such assiduity and