Bob Buck's statement to H. A. Heinrich, Coroner. 25/04/1931.

While it is usually written that Bob Buck buried Harold Lasseter at Winters Glen on the headwaters of Irving Creek, officially the location of Lasseter's first grave is on the headwaters of of the Shaw Creek, the next major watercourse to the west, where Buck discovered Lasseter's body in late March 1931. The following month to the day, Arthur Blakeley, the Minister for Home Affairs, announced to the Press, "that he had received advice from the Government Resident of Central Australia that the body of Mr. L. H. Lasseter was found at Shaw Creek in the Petermann Ranges on the 28th March by a Mr. R. Buck". The minor discrepancy in locale and distance might be explained by the area covered by Bob Buck's stubby finger on Ernest Giles map, when pointing out to V. G. Carrington where he had buried Lasseter, and there is no authentic record of Buck travelling with maps, his companions took care of that oversight.  

Named by Ernest Giles in March 1874, during his first traverse of the Petermann Ranges, after Mr. T. Shaw of Camperdown Vic. "At ten miles from Louisa's Creek we camped at another and larger watercourse than the Chirnside, which I called the Shaw. All these watercourses ran up north, the small joining the larger ones - some independently, but all going to the north.", Giles supposed these watercourses must empty into Lake Amadeus, a conjecture not disproved until 1889 by H. H. Tietkens who was Giles Second in Charge on his 1873/74 expedition. Giles appreciated scenery with an eloquent pen and likened the Pottoyu Hills, where these north flowing watercourses rise, to a “wild Parthenius, tossing in waves of pine”, he was referring to the modern named Bartin River in Anatolia,  thus revealing a wide ranging classical education, and he was pleased to add that the region was "remarkably free of the odious triodia".

LASSETERIA

© R.Ross. 1999-2010

Michael Terry, Untold Miles, 271. Ernest Giles, Australia Twice Traversed, Chapter 2:9, http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/g/giles/ernest/.  Title, Central Australian Gold Exploration Synd. Assistance to Prospect. PAGES 64,66,68.  Series No/ A431, Control symbol 1948/1143, Barcode No. 68988 1931-1938. The Sydney Morning Herald, 29/04/31, pg. 11. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16773293.   Errol Coote, Hell's Airport, 251,251.