Newsletter

This meeting will be held at the Conservation Centre, 120 Wakefield Street on Wednesday June 21^st and will commence at the normal time of 8pm.

After the general business we will be looking at the fish section of the Photo Index to select the best slides. These will become the ones to be used for meetings and for loan. The rest will be stored as a reserve selection only to be used in emergencies.

Owing to a hard disk failure and the loss of my entire stock of articles this Newsletter will be much shorter than usual.

I therefore appeal for everyone to put finger/s to keyboard and to generate a supply of articles for me to use over the next few months. This Newsletter is being generated by courtesy of Phill McPeake whilst my new computer is being built.

2000 Annual General Meeting

Dragonsearch

Code of Practice - sensible precautions for divers interacting with Seadragons

How Did Australia Get Its Name?

The AGM was well attended and after the general business the election of officers went very smoothly. As there were only the required number of nominations for the positions, everyone was unanimously re-elected.

The officer positions were then filled as follows:

Editor Philip Hall

Following the break when we all enjoyed the food and liquid refreshment supplied by everyone we viewed slides taken by Ralph Richardson and David Muirhead.

Hi everyone,

Just thought I'd let you all know that the on-line seadragon sighting form is finally working. It has taken a while to fix but now everyone should be able to use it successfully. So if you have any seadragon sightings that you haven't reported it would be much appreciated if you could use the on-line form to send them in.

Sorry for the delay in getting it running properly.

regards,
Jeremy Gramp
Dragon Search (SA)
www.dragonsearch.asn.au

- Do not attempt to 'herd' or influence seadragons' swimming direction, and especially avoid causing a rapid change of depth.

- Be aware that pairs are common - if you can see one, you or your buddy may be unknowingly stressing its nearby but unseen mate.

- Do not knowingly separate seadragon pairs.

- Do not damage the seabottom in vicinity (eg. by dislodging algae or sponges) this could make it difficult for the seadragon or its mate to recognise its territory as Seadragons are known to be very territorial.

- Do not fin strongly while moving away from or around a seadragon, so as to minimise turbulence.

- Learn to recognise common behaviours (eg. feeding, resting, distress).

Our country has been known by many names over the years. The continent was once a small part of the largest continent on Earth. Thousands of millions of years ago our land was part of the large supercontinent we call Gondwanaland. It was situated over the southern polar region. Later on Gondwanaland collided with another continent to become even bigger. This huge land-mass was to be called Pangaea. Years later Pangaea broke into two parts again with our land still a part of Gondwanaland again (stage two). Years later Gondwanaland broke apart and our land became a separate continent. Whilst the rest of the world developed over the years, there was no knowledge about the existence of our land. Less than two thousand years ago, though, there was talk about an ‘unknown land’. Geographers said that there had to be a large land-mass to balance the Earth. Earth’s northern land-masses were well known but it was theorised that southern land-masses must exist to balance the planet. The mystery land-mass(es) were referred to as "Terra Incognita", the Unknown Land. Then there came reference to "Terra Australis Incognita", the Unknown Land far away in the South (or Unknown South Land). The word "Australis" features in the name given to the light phenomenon seen in the southern hemisphere, Aurora Australis. Various names began to crop up for our land as explorers heard about or discovered more about our land. When Marco Polo heard about a huge island to the south of Java he called it "Locach". Geographers of the time called it Greater Java. In 1606 a Portuguese explorer thought that he had found the Great South Land. He called his discovery "Austrialia del Espiritu Santo" (Southland of the Holy Spirit?). It turned out that he had (only) found what later became known as the New Hebrides and (later on) Vanuatu. Capt. James Cook charted the region in 1774 and applied the name New Hebrides to the area (which is some 1,000 miles east of Australia). When Dutch explorers visited our shores they named our land "Nouvelle Hollande", New Holland. When Captain James Cook landed on our eastern shore he called the land New South Wales. This was not the State that we now know. It was all the land "east of the 135^th meridian of east longitude", all of our country with the exception of Tasmania and Western Australia. Cook had thought that the coastline where he had landed resembled that of south Wales. If the French had claimed our land as their own they would have been named it Terra Napoleon. Matthew Flinders charted most of our land between 1801 & 1803 and proved that the mainland was an island. He suggested that the land be named "Australia" rather than "Terra Australis". This name was not accepted at first because the New Hebrides had originally been called "Austrialia" (del Espiritu Santo). Decades later, however, the name "Australia" became accepted.