Henry Yorke Lyell Brown

He discovered the Weld Range, drilled the first artesian bore near Perth, and forecast accurately that the colony's mineral resources would eventually become a main source of its advance.

He made the first recorded observations of much of the hot, arid interior, often travelling alone but for an 'Afghan' camel-driver or Aboriginal guide, under harsh conditions.

He explored the MacDonnell Ranges in 1888, 1890 and 1896 and the country to the north of the Nullarbor Plain in 1897, and in 1905 journeyed to Charlotte Waters, near the SA border, and to the north-west of the Northern Territory.

[1] The State Library of South Australia holds a collection of photographs taken by Brown, which includes several of Charlotte Waters dated c.1880.

His works also extended to palaeontology, making collections that included a large and extinct mammal, a diprotodont, and reptilian Megalania, obtained to the northeast of Lake Eyre.

[3] In 1887 and 1890 Brown had published records of the mines of South Australia to draw attention to mineral resources and to the unsystematic way in which they were worked.

[6] H. Y. L. Brown's works include the cataloguing of the geological specimens collected on the William Henry Tietkins expedition to central Australia.