SIMPSON DESERT

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 49, 26 August 1939, Page 11

SIMPSON DESERT

REALLY ARID AREA

CAR TRACKS AFTER TEN

YEARS

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

SYDNEY, August 18.

The expedition Avhich recently masde the first crossing, of the Simpson Desert has exploded -many fantastic legends about that 55,000 square miles of the "dead heart" of -Australia.

Mr. H. O. Fletcher, of Sydney, wh. was palaeontologist with the expedition, said that no light-skinned aborigines or red-haired gins lived in the middle of the Simpson Desert, There Avere signs,that natives had been near the middle of the desert, but that was probably many years ago. Reports that hills or small mountains of borax were to be found were disproved. The whole area comprised red sand.. It'was found that the Macumba, Warburton, .and another river appearing on the maps .as' feeding North Lake Eyre, did not reach it.- In. one. place. the car tracks of a party of 1929 were still to be seen in a river bed, proving that no Avater had passed through there for ten years.

Little Avater . was. found, but as it rained .several days, the party was able to augment its supplies. The natural fauna of the desert, said Mr. Fletcher, was singularly scarce. Large numbers of dingoes Avere seen almost every day, and were an intolerable nuisance to him because they robbed tlie traps of mice, rats, and other small animals. Beyond a few Avrens, crows, and browh .hawks, no bird life was observed. -The night parrot, for which, they kept a close watch,,was not seen in this, its last line of retreat, and is now believed to be extinct.

The desert contained little plant life. Snakes Avere plentiful in one area. No fossils or geological specimens were found in the desert itself, but some brush-tailed mice, pig-nosed and black-and-Avhite-tailed rats were seen.