It is just over a hundred years since Charles Darwin, during his great voyage, visited Sydney, New South Wales. While there, he was given, by the explorer Major Sir Thomas Mitchell, a small and curiously shaped glassy object. In his ‘Geological Observations’ (1844) Darwin figured this object and speculated as to its origin, which he suggested was volcanic. This is the first recorded reference to what are now known as australites, many tens of thousands of which have been collected from widespread localities over the whole of southern Australia.