Seasons Without Names

Abstract

For some two hundred years, the seasons of the tropics seem to have remained nameless, except for the very broad terms of "wet" and "dry". The average population thinks of their seasons as not "proper". Misconceptions, misreading and disappointment seem to have been characteristics of white Australian culture and its relationship to the land. Even before Australia was "discovered", its existence was believed to be necessary to balance the existence of the three great land masses in the northern hemisphere: Europe, Asia and Africa. However, successive voyages of exploration restricted the area within which the Great South Land might be found. When its northern and western coasts were eventually explored by Dutch seamen in the seventeenth century, they were profoundly dismayed by the apparent lack of possibilities for mercantile exploitation.