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The Library purchased a journal and other papers of John King, sole
survivor of the Burke and Wills Expedition, in 1936 from another
source. The King ‘journal’ is fragmentary and is in the form of
a retrospective account covering the forward journey to the Gulf
of Carpentaria, December 1860 to January 1861. It is not known when
it was written.
The three journals
form part of NLA MS 30 and their combined monetary worth by today’s
values runs into hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The Royal Society
of Victoria’s Expedition Committee deposited most of the other papers
of the expedition with State Library of Victoria in 1875. The papers
include reports, despatches and watercolour drawings by members
of the Burke and Wills expedition and the relief parties sent in
search of it.
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