Chasm Island

Chasm Island is an island of Australia, located in the state of the Northern Territory, in the northern part of the continent, 2,700 km north of Canberra, the capital of the country.

Geography

Chasm Island covers 3.2 square kilometres and the topography is flat, the highest point of the island being 79 meters above sea level. It covers 1.9 km from north to south and 3.0 km from east to west.

Population

Less than 2 people per square kilometre.

Culture

The first European discovery of aboriginal rock paintings took place on 14 January 1803. During a surveying expedition along the shores and islands of the Gulf of Carpentaria, British navigator and explorer Matthew Flinders made landfall on Chasm Island. Within the island's rock shelters, Flinders discovered an array of painted and stenciled patterns. To preserve these images, he enlisted the ship's artist, William Westall, to produce visual records. Westall's two watercolor sketches are the earliest known documentation of Australian rock paintings. In his journal, Flinders not only detailed the location and the artworks but also authored the inaugural site report: Members of the 1948 American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land made tracings and photographs of the rock art;

In the deep sides of the chasms were deep holes or caverns undermining the cliffs; upon the walls of which I found rude drawings, made with charcoal and something like red paint upon the white ground of the rock. These drawings represented porpoises, turtle, kanguroos, and a human hand; and Mr. Westall, who went afterwards to see them, found the representation of a kanguroo [sic], with a file of thirty-two persons following after it. The third person of the band was twice the height of the others, and held in his hand something resembling the whaddie, or wooden sword of the natives of Port Jackson; and was probably intended to represent a chief. They could not, as with us, indicate superiority by clothing or ornament, since they wore none of any kind; and therefore, with the addition of a weapon, similar to the ancients, they seem to have made superiority of person the principal emblem of superior power, of which, indeed, power is usually a consequence in the very early stages of society.

Climate

The savanna climate average temperature is 25 °C. The warmest month is November, at 29 °C, and the coldest is July, at 22 °C.[5] The average rainfall is 1,184 millimeters per year. The wettest month is March, with 332 millimeters of rain, and the driest is July, with 3 millimeters.[6]