School of Geography - Theses

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    The manufacturing geography of selected areas in Melbourne
    Wong, Kwan Yiu ( 1965)
    The Australian manufacturing industry, whose real growth became apparent only after the turn of the present century, has displayed a distinct characteristic during its history of development in having an extremely high percentage of manufacturing activities concentrated in the five capital cities, and especially in the two major centres of Melbourne and Sydney. Statistics have shown that in 1360-61, 73% of the Australian manufacturing industry, in terms of employment, was located in the capitals, with Melbourne and Sydney together making up 58%. Studies of manufacturing actvities in these major centres, though not representative of those covering the whole nation, may nevertheless show numerous points of interest and reveal certain characteristics in the environment and structure of the Australian industrial economy. Such studies are unfortunately very limited, especially for the Melbourne metropolitan area. Although for this latter area, some general studies have been undertaken, none is profound enough to reveal in detail its basic industrial structure and environment. It is felt that Melbourne, with 81% of the Victorian and 27% of the Australian manufacturing employment and with its central position to the major industrial states of Australia, should be given greater consideration.
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    The coalfields of eastern Australia: an examination of the rise, contemporary character and areal impact of bituminous coal mining
    Wilson, Murray G. A. ( 1965)
    Traditionally the coal mining industry has resisted innovation. Changes in working methods, in conditions of employment and in productivity have often been achieved only as a result of considerable industrial, discord and community discomfort. In Australia reluctance to change has been all too obvious. Yet, since 194-6, few other industries have been quite so profoundly or so completely modified,so that coal mining in 1965 bears little resemblance to the industry of the immediate post-war years except that it is beset by problems resulting from continuing and intensifying fuel competition. The ramifications of these changes have been widespread. In New South Males a booming economy, highly specialised demands and ruthless price competition from the petroleum industry have brought about a drastic decline in the use of general purpose coal but a marked increase in the demand for specialised qualities e.g. for coke making or the generation of electricity. In consequence the prosperity of particular fields, or mines working specific seams within fields has been much affected. Many old, small, or unprofitable pits have been closed} mechanisation of working methods has become general; new mines have been established to meet particular demands; productivity and quality control have been vastly improved and the average size of collieries has tended to increase. In Queensland less specialised demands and the existence of an omnipotent Coal Board have staved off the worst of these changes until much more recently but there,too, the transformation is under way. The first collieries have how been equipped with mining machinery of a type long common in Mew South Wales, larger mines are in the process of establishment, productivity is beginning to rise and to show some marked differentiation according to mine size and the Coal Board is considering the desirability of closing mines unable to meet and maintain satisfactory price and quality standards. In Victoria, however, change is of a retrograde kind for only two of the handful of pits have any importance and these, as State owned enterprises, have made consistent trading losses for many years, an indication of their difficult working conditions and restricted deposits. With limited lives there is little possibility of change other than by demise. In the coalfield communities the social implications of these changes have been equally as significant. The retrenchment of more then 10,000 mine workers in the space of a decade from the New South Males mines alone has caused a major reorientation of some of the more highly specialised settlements and in others out-mignation or occupational diversification through long distance commuting. Others have begun on the slow decline that leads ultimately to loss of function and complete abandonment. With this has gone a change in settlement form - a revival of local commerce in those fortunate enough to retain their residents, further physical deterioration in some of the already under-maintained settlements, a change in population structure as pensioners move in and the school leavers move out, as families move in on the demise of pensioners, as migrants move in to replace the native born. In some localities these changes have contributed further to the distinctiveness of the coal town, in ethers they have tended to blurr a former distinctiveness. At a different level a blurring of the farmer distinctiveness is also taking place in the major urban areas that have risen with and because of the coal industry. Large scale industrial and residential development in the post-war years has now began to obliterate the last traces of more than a century of coal mining in and around the cities of Newcastle, Wollongong and Ipswich. Pit head gear, mineral railways, subsidence areas relics of all kinds and their distinctive contribution to urban morphology are being submerged in amorphous and omnivorous suburbia.
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    Victorian towns as service centres
    Fairbairn, Kenneth John ( 1967)
    No abstract available
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    Geographic variation in Eucalyptus Globulus Labill: including studies on the distribution and taxonomy of the species
    Kirkpatrick, J. B. ( 1973)
    The distribution of Eucalyptus globulus Labill, is described and discussed. Geographic variation is demonstrated in a number of seedling and adult characters. This variation appears mainly to relate to climatic factors. The stepped clinal variation pattern characteristic of the species probably has a divergent origin, although the possibility of an introgressive origin cannot be excluded. A new taxonomic treatment of E. globulus, based on numerical analyses and the geographic variation data, reduces three taxa previously regarded as species to the subspecific level.
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    Study of a quantitative method of delineating physical-geographic regions in interdisciplinary integrated survey: the grid-point method
    Massey, Jack ( 1975)
    Interdisciplinary surveys involve mapping physicalgeographic regions according to readily observable criteria for the purpose of assisting in making a variety of decisions about land use. Difficulties are associated with traditional surveys, which rely on aerial photographic interpretation and purposive sampling, due to the lack of a standardized, quantitative methodology. The grid-point method is proposed as a rigorous, quantitative approach and was applied in the Grampians north-east section (507 sq.km.), the upper Barwon River catchment (977 sq.km.), and on French Island (172 sq.kin.). Variables used reflect obvious distributions of landform, soil, and native vegetation, and quasi-random sampling patterns with circular sampling units and densities between 1 sampling unit per .89 and 2.42 sq.km. were employed. Landform data were gathered from contour maps, and soil samples and vegetation data were gathered in the field; Boil data were obtained by laboratory analyses. Data were subjected to principal components analysis, and standardized data were scored on the first three scaled and first three orthoreormalized vectors. Sampling units were classified on the basis of the scores and then regionalized by SYM�-V proximal mapping. These regionalizations provided a sound basis for physical-geographic description. Inherent features of the grid-point method overcame difficulties associated with traditional surveys. Statistical analyses indicated that sampling densities as low as 1 sampling unit per 4 sq.km. are sufficient to generate interpretable regionalizations of the Grampians north-east section. Comparisons of regionalizations with the land systems map of this area produced by traditional methods reveals that the grid-point method is capable of generating regions similar in level of generalization to the land systems. With respect to selected variables,the regionalizations are in the majority of cases of higher quality than the land systems map. The cost of survey at 1 sampling unit per .97 sq.km. of this area is within the limits of most survey organizations and estimates for surveys at densities of 1 sampling unit per 1.14, 1.51, 2.07, 3.49, 4.15, and 9.74 sq.km. reveal that although there is a significant reduction in cost with decrease in sample size, an economy of scale factor operates. Because the grid-point method is orientated to field data gathering, it is least expensively applied in study areas characterized by undulating plains as well as flat plains and hills, which are for the most part cleared with a dry surface. Estimates for five study areas previously surveyed by the Soil Conservation Authority indicate that the cost of application of the grid-point method at sampling densities of 1 sampling unit per 1 ?q.km. and lower is not excessive. Efficiency of the grid-point method may be enhanced by purposivesystematic sampling near roads and vehicle tracks and purposive stratification of the study area prior to application. The grid-point method should be applied in interdisciplinary surveys carried out in south-eastern Australia. Applications should take the form of reco??aissan?e surveys involving relatively low density sampling. The resulting regionalizations, although probably somewhat coarse, should provide a sound framework for general pbysical-geographic description.
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    The geographical dimensions of social banditry: the Kelly outbreak 1878 -1880
    McQuilton, Francis John ( 1977)
    Bushranging was an integral part of nineteenth century- rural settlement in Australia and the bushranger earned a favoured place in the nation's folklore. There he has remained Academic studies of the bushranger and bushranging outbreaks have been few in number and limited in scope to biographical studies, divorcing the bushranger from his times. An academic tradition exists that treats the bushranger as a social aberration. Many, in fact, were social bandits, similar to those in southern Europe as identified and described by Hobsbawm. The bushranger often represented an extreme reaction to social conditions. His views were more extreme than but still compatible with social attitudes and mores developed in rural areas during the conflict that accompanied political ' attempts to foster agricultural settlement in nineteenth century Australia. This thesis examines the Kelly Outbreak of 1878-1880 in North-Eastern Victoria, sets the Outbreak in the context of its time and examines the inter-relationship between settlement failure and social banditry. Three successive rural land-use systems dominated the North-East between 1835 and 1884. The pastoralists (squatters) were the first settlers establishing huge runs for sheep. Gold discoveries of 1852 disrupted squatting land-use and mining dominated the region " for a decade. Declining yields and political ferment brought the first of the selection acts in I860. The digger was expected to turn to agriculture for his. livelihood. The acts pitted the selector and squatter against each other in a competition for the control and utilisation of the region's rural resources. The squatters' easy victory compounded the problems already posed by the failure of selection as a commercial agrarian enterprise. Selector communities developed a code of ethics that accepted selective stock theft. The four members of the Kelly Gang came from local selector communities in the North-East. All had served jail sentences for stock theft or crimes related to stock theft. The Kelly brothers belonged to a clan whose members had failed as selectors and who were notorious to the police and local squatters as stock thieves. The Kelly's had much in common with their selector neighbours and although their views were more extreme, they were never alien to those who lived in the same communities. In 1878, when four young selectors' sons formed the Kelly Gang after the tragedy at Stringybark Creek, they found widespread local support amongst selector communities in the region, a support that enabled them to elude the police for over I8 months. Without the failure of selection as an agrarian settlement process, a failure rooted in the conflict for the control of rural resources by two socially antagonistic groups, and the development of attitudes in rural areas favourable to the existence of social banditry, the Kelly Outbreak would not have posed the serious challenge to the Victorian authorities that it came to be. And the existence of social banditry in the capitalistic social structure of nineteenth century colonial Victoria suggests that the preconditions and social situation described by Hobsbawm as being necessary for the development of social banditry should be modified.