Sources
Help build the largest human-edited directory on the web.
Submit a site - Become an editor
Wikipedia. Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Are you an expert in this subject? Join the discussion and share your knowledge at Wikipedia.org.
Geelong Keys
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Geelong Keys are a set of keys discovered in 1845 or 1846 by Governor Charles La Trobe at Corio Bay in Victoria, Australia. They were embedded in the stone of the beach in such a way as to make him believe that they had been there for 100-150 years. Since the earliest proven English exploration of the area was by Matthew Flinders in 1802, the keys were believed to originate with some earlier explorers of the region, possibly alluding to earlier Portuguese explorations.[1]
The study of these keys is the subject of two pamphlets published by the Royal Society of Victoria in the 1870s. The first of these pamphlets suggested that the depth of keys indicated an age closer to 200-300 years. The second pamphlet repudiated this claim, based on an interview with a limeburner who said that the keys may have been dropped down a hole to that depth. The Geelong Keys are often connected to the Mahogany Ship further west on Victoria's Shipwreck Coast, also claimed to be a relic of early Portuguese exploration of the area.
The keys are referred to in a child’s book The Voyage of the Poppykettle (and later The Poppykettle Papers), where the keys are used as ballast in a clay-pot ship sailed by resettling Peruvian gnomes. These stories were so popular in Ingpen's home, Geelong, that a fountain and an annual Poppykettle Festival celebrate the mythical landing of the "hairy Peruvians".
- ^ McIntyre, Gordon (1982). Secret Discovery of Australia: Portuguese Ventures 200 Years Before Captain Cook. Sydney: Pan Books Australia, 236. ISBN 0330270338.
 |
This Australia-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |