About 20 minutes’ drive north of Geraldton, on Australia’s west coast, lies a hill named Mount Sommer. The little peak is one of the few relics left behind by the enigmatic nineteenth-century polymath Dr Ferdinand von Sommer, Western Australia’s first government geologist.
In the span of four years, von Sommer made a few friends, several enemies and a handful of surprisingly excellent maps of parts of Western Australia. His origins, life and career have been rather shrouded in mystery – in no small part because of the flood of disparaging invective about him published in local newspapers of the day.
