The Australian Bureau of Statistics' Year Book Australia, 1974 puts it quite succinctly: 'Prior to the 1914-18 war, Australian science was based largely on the individual achievements of a few outstanding scientists' This was true of Australian science but gives an inadequate picture of the range of science, technology engineering and innovation activities that characterised the Australian colonies before 1901 and the young nation between Federation and the end of World War I. Much of the country's scientific output concerned Australia's unique flora and fauna, astronomical observations, geological mapping and meteorology (Moyal, see Further reading).
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