AUSTRALIAN STAMP

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 221, 14 June 1930, Page 17

AUSTRALIAN STAMP

* Sturt Centenary A GREAT EXPLORER New Australian stamps, bearing a portrait of Sturt, the explorer, were a feature of this week’s Australian mail. Two values have been issued, the 1 Sd, which is in red, and the 3d, which is in blue. Below the picture is a boomerang, with its end at the lower corners of the stamp, bearing the wording “Sturt, Explorer Centenary,” with the value shown iu a white oval beneath the apex, of the weapon, and the dates, 1830-1930, flanking it. At the sides are ornamental borders, While the words “Australia Postage” appear ou the Zeppelin-shaped ornament across the top of the stamps. They have been excellently printed by John Ash, the Commonwealth printer, the plates having been line-engraved. Each sheel consists of 120 stamps, scut out in ten rows of twelve stamps each. The number of the plate has, like tlie line-engraved stamps of New Zealand, been placed on the left-hand top corner of the sheet. The only stamps which have yet reached Wellington are from plate 1, but local philatelists think that there would be at least four plates for each value, but, unlike the New Zealand system, both values hare the same plate numbers. The paper upon which the new stamps have been printed is unwatermarked. Tlie Work of Sturt. Charles Sturt was the son of an East India Company judge, being born near Benares in India in 1795. Joining the army at the age of 18, he saw service in Spain, the Pyrenees, Toulouse, Northern France, Ireland and Canada, eventually coming to Sydney with bls regiment in 1827. Soon afterwards ho became aide-de-eampe and military secretary to Governor Darling, who, having been impressed by his scientifle knowledge, sent him off to discover the course of the Macquarrie beyond Oxley’s terminus of 1818. When this had been completed he was given command of a party to explore the Murrumbidgee River. On January 7, 1830, with a boat about the size of a whaleboat, having a skiff iu tow, the river journey was commenced, but ou the second day the skiff struck a snag, sank, and took the provisions with her, so that two days had to be spent in their recovery. The voyage was full of incident.

The return journey has been describe ■ed as one of the most heroic iu Australian annals. With his crew “very weak from poverty of diet and from great bodily fatigue,” he commenced the homeward journey on February 13, reaching the Murrumbidgee entrance on March 17, having put up the creditable record of 26 days down, and 33 days up, against tho tide. Six days later they arrived at their depot. But it was deserted. For another 17 days tho wearv, half-starved men rowed against the now flooded Murrumbidgee so that tTuv often fell asleep, and one of the party became delirious. Then Sturt camped, and sent two men off to bring help from another depot, and this arrived on the day the last of the flour supply had been consumed. Slowly the journey back to Sydney dragged to its end, and when it had concluded, Sturt went (blind for many months. He continued iu liis explorations for another quarter of a century, receiving the Founder’s Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1847, and in 1869 he was nominated K.C.M.0., out died before the honour was gazetted.