Tasmania

Bill Beatty

Published by Cassell, hardcover with dustjacket, illustrated
dustjacket damaged

TASMANIA - ISLE OF SPLENDOUR is one of Bill Beatty's most popular travel books. Its pages are filled both with historical fact and impressions from the author's recent visits. There are tales of the island's pioneers—bushrangers, mutinies, ship-wrecks and grim storics of convict cannibals. But the author shows that Tasmania is able to offer far more than a historydrenched past. It is shown today as an island for the visitor and holidaymaker with its scenic variety and many tourist amenities; its fast growing economy from the State's position as one of the world's greatest fruit growing centres; its expanding industries which even the severe bushfires of 1967 could not curb, and the harnessing of immense water resources for electric power.

Tasmania has many satellite islands, ranging from rocky outcrops to large, populated islands, all of which are rich in attractions. The unique mutton-bird industry of the Bass Strait islands is revealed in a fascinating account of the birders and the reader is taken on a trip with the scallop fishermen of D'Entrecastaux Channel. Few will read Bill Beatty's description of the ruggel West Coast without the wish to see it for themselves.
Tasmania's flora and fauna, birds, reptiles, minerals and historie treasures—all are brought to life in this lively and absorbing book of Australia's smallest hut most beautiful State.