Fool's Gold: Myths and Legends of Gold Seeking in Australia by Barry McGowan

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. General wear to book corners and edges. Pages are sunned.

Fool's Gold is a panoramic history of gold-seeking myths and legends in Australia. It begins with the mystery of El Dorado and the conquistadors in South America and the first gold discoveries in Australia by Edward Hargraves and others.

Many of the events that followed were dramatic, some because of their success and others for their failure. In Queensland, there was the abortive Canoona rush of 1858. The Gilbert and Palmer gold rushes followed with their bloody clashes and wild stories of cannibalism and caves of bones and gold.

Western Australia is host to stories of the hapless Kimberley goldfield and several bogus gold rushes. New South Wales and South Australia boast the short-lived but iconic Mount Browne and Teetulpa rushes. In Victoria, there are tales of lost reefs, hidden treasures and pirate's gold.

Stories of lost reefs are legion. One involves Jimmy Wickham and the other, Harold Bell Lasseter. The Lasseter story is a saga of mishap and calamity, which ends with Lasseter's death, but it is also full of conjecture. Was there ever a reef, and if not what was the purpose of the expedition? Did Lasseter die out there or did he disappear? In the 1930s the Tanami area is again the centre of attention, and there is even a gold rush to Arnhem Land. But overshadowing all is the Lasseter's Reef story, which spawns countless expeditions and a procession of adventurers and rogues. It is the last El Dorado. (publishers blurb)