MENACE OF THE GRANITES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17951, 1 December 1932, Page 8

MENACE OF THE GRANITES

GOLD-SEEKERS WARNED

LEAVE BONES ON TRACK

ADELAIDE, Nov. 20.

"Death Valley,’’ the notorious desert trap of California, holds no greater menace than The Granites, lone outpost of Australia’s sun-scorched interior, ac cording to Mr. C. M. Yeomans, miningengineer, who returned hero to-day. Unless something is done to check the possibilities of disease, tragedy will swoop on The Granites before Christmas, he declares.

“Mark my words—the track out there will be strewn with the bones of foolhardy men, unless they come to their senses,” he said, sounding yet another note of warning to the ill-equipped and inexperienced adventurers who are answering the call of desert gold. Typhoid is the dreaded menace that hovers over the little desert township. “It may not be present at The Granites yet,” sairl the Commonwealth Medical Officer, Dr. Ponsford, “but if only one man there has had it years ago, it will Spread like wildfiuc among the workers on the. field.”

Men Without even camel transport—men with just the clothes they walk in —lacking botli money and food, aro hushing on towards The Granites, says Mr. Yeomans.

“These men, who will not listen to reason, should be stopped by law, ns a menace not only to themselves, but to those who might have to risk their lives in search of them,” the mining engineer declared.

The water at The Granites has already brought on dysentery and bavcoo rot. and is n. possible source of typhoid. Pure food is not easily available, and the. lack of these essentials leads inevitnblv to disease.