GOLD FEVER

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 357, 19 October 1932, Page 6

GOLD FEVER

i ' AMAZING SCENES I [ THE GRANITES GOLD RUSH | ATTRACTS THOUSANDS TO THE DESERT. ! | A FIELD WITH A HISTORY. I ~~ Writing from Alice Springs last j Saturday, a representative of the Syd- ! r.ey Sun says: — Hailed as a new Coolgardie, The Granites, the desert goldfield in the inhospitable heart of Australia, has yielded its first prizes to a hardy hand of adventurers — and the mad rush is on. Planes roar overhead. Trucks lumber heavily on desert roads. Groups of excited men talk of gold — gold — gold! They carry it in tobacco tins'and red bandanas. Baby nuggets and sand-covered fragments of aluvial. Everywhere the first prizes of the early arrivals are paraded . . . gold in brown paper bags and cocoa tins — gold from The Granites. I saw 17oz yesterday in a publican's hand. I watehed one prospector pay his last week's drinlc bill. with 8oz of alluvial. But gold was never cheap! Living eonditions are atrocious. There is only one well It has a capacity of 100 gallons daily, and it is three miles from The Granites. Well-sinkers have gone to ueepen it. It is the only hope to meet the increased demand. Two aeroplanes arrived to-day. Tomorrow Adelaide and Melbourne mining men will proceed to The Granites by truck. There is no landing ground for 'planes on the goldfields. Flies abound. There is o'nly one building, a tin store with a liquor license, at Kilgariff. Health Regulations. Most of the early arrivals are sieeping out. Special health regulations have been posted at the police station here. No camp is permitted within seven chains of the water supp-ly. Ail ^rinking water must be boiled, and enough Condy's crystals to cover sixpence must be added to each fourgallon drum. Food supplies must be eovered from dust and flies. Refuse must be burnt. Alice Springs buzzes with a traditional gold-rush atmosphere of excitement and expectancy. Trucks leave frequently with liquor. Men eome and go, hungry for gold. Uncivilised blacks lurlc in the desert some miles from Coniston Station. But the fever spreads. Cynics refuse to believe that The Granites is anything but a mad gamble, but the general opinion is against them. Hammered to Death. Doug. McDowall, who has spent 25 years searching for gold in Australia's waterless interior, tells of the romance behind The Granites. This field, says, McDowall, is no r.ew diseovery. Its history goes back to 1900, when the first prospector gave his life in pursuit of the yellow prlze, which has now lured an army oi hopeful adventurers to the fields. Following on Allan Davidson, who was sent out by an English syndicate, to search for "another Coolgardie," a man named Stewart and a comp'anion arrived at the fields. Winter rains had replenished the well. They stayed for some days, and Stewart discovered some rich showings of gold. They gathersd a rich prize, and then, one evening, an aboriginal hammered Stewart to death. Rude Tomb His mate dug a hole for the body, and erected a rude tomb. It is there to this day, a grim reminder, on the line of the lode, where hundreds now seek their fortunes. Later a party of Schotz brothers and another prospector named Muir struck colour. They worlced the well for some time, but one of the brothers became seriously ill through drinking contaminated water. His companions abandoned the claim to rush him to Alice Springs, but he died on the way — the others never returned. It was in 1924 that a party won the first big amount of gold from the field. It is said they took awiay 37 ounces after a few weeks' work