The Royal Society has commissioned a group of researchers to produce a book on The Scientific Legacy of Burke and Wills. The book will be produced with the cooperation of the State Library of Victoria, and illustrated with high quality reproductions of drawings and paintings produced by members of the expedition, including Becker, Beckler and Strutt.

In 1860, the Royal Society of Victoria initiated the Victorian Exploring Expedition as a serious scientific exploration of the hitherto unexplored centre of Australia. Members of the Expedition were sent pages of detailed handwritten instructions on scientific measurement and observations to be carried out, covering about a dozen areas of science.

Although the instructions were subsequently published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of 1860, the tragic ending of the expedition meant that the results of the scientific investigations actually carried out were not reported or published. The new book will rectify this historic omission.

The book will include the original instructions, document the actual science carried out, as recorded in collections of flora and fauna, drawings and paintings, notebooks and diaries, and provide analysis and comment on these products of the Expedition. It will reveal for first time the true extent and limits of the scientific achievements of both the Burke and Wills Expedition and the various relief expeditions which followed.

For more details of editors, authors and chapter content, download the Book Prospectus. Negotiations with publishers are being conducted in collaboration with the State Library of Victoria, which will supply images of the scientific paintings and drawings made by Ludwig Becker and Hermann Beckler. Target date for publication is April 2011.