LASSETER'S "REEF"

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 13, 15 July 1936, Page 10

LASSETER'S "REEF"

A MYTH EXPLODED

PROSPECTING ROMANCE

(From "The Posi's" Representative.)

SYDNEY, July 9. "Lasseter's lost reef," said to contain immensely rich gold deposits, has become almost legendary in the story of Australian gold prospecting, but. the latest reports of an official geologist indicates that the "myth" has been dealt a final blow.

Searches for Lasseter's reef go back nearly 15 years, when the prospector Lasseter set out in the Macdonnel Ranges, lured by stories of rich ruby deposits. He found the rubies to be worthless garnets. When lost in \he desert, near the eastern border of Western Australia, Lasseter stumbled on what he thought'to be a reef, and. filled an oatmeal sack with samples. Witn Harding, a Government surveyor, he returned to this reef, and, so the story runs, traced it for some miles. Lasseter's story of rich gold deposits were responsible for the Western Australian Government sending two. fruitless expeditions, neither of which could reach the site of the supposed reef. In 1930 Lasseter was one of an air expedition which attempted to locate the reef. On a subsequent attempt to reach his reef, Lasseter perished in the desert, an attempt made famous by lon Idriess in his book "Lasseter's Last Ride."

Since then romantic gtories of the richness of Lasseter's lost reef, have fired mining men and others to search for it. Two expeditions recently left Sydney, and one of them, sent out by a Sydney syndicate and headed by Messrs. Cutlack and Hammerston, reported that it had located the reef from the air. The Western Australian Government Geologist (Mr. A. A. Ellis) was thereupon sent to inspect the area. The supposed "reef" was described by Mr. Ellis as a "sandstone ridge in the middle of barren sandhills, with no quartz or likely-looking country for 100 miles." The position of the ridge was 50 miles from the border, in the Carnavon Range, and 70 miles north-west of Livingstone Pass.] "The Cutlack expedition was out for three weeks," reported Mr. Ellis. It was a party, supposed to be going out to a very rich gold reef, yet the.object of the party seemed to be to pass the time conveniently. It had ample supplies of everything except for mining. There was no prospecting material."

Mr. Ellis said the reef he inspected was that claimed by the air party to be Lasseter's lost reef, as Pilot Hall had taken the position of an outcrop

pointed out to him by Mr. Hammerston. Dr. Guy Harris, another geologist with the party, describe'd the posi-

tion as one where it was impossible for gold to occur.

Now the glowing stories of Lasseter's "lost reef" are being offset by a growing belief that Lasseter's stories were the product of partial delirium, induced by his privations in the desert.