The Great Inland Sea: reflections on the buddhadharma in the post-secular age

For many decades following its first European settlement the Australian continent was believed to hold a vast inland sea, which had only to be verified by prompt exploration and scientific authentication. The first decades of the nineteenth century saw a rash of different expeditions that each sought out, and universally failed to find, the great inland sea of which so many, so hopefully, had dreamed. The primary cause for their hope is un-clear, except that a reservoir of freshwater would have been able to support the burgeoning agricultural economy and demography of this new, promised southern land.