Updated 06/01/2023.

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Now that Mr. Isaac T. Mullard has entered the Lasseter affair a great deal of LASSETERIA will have to be rewritten and the rest critically reviewed. Ike Mullard was the Mr. Mallard who paid Lasseter a visit in late January 1930 and left Lasseter with a map to a gold reef in the Warburton Ranges.  

Both Mullard, who had some form on the West Australian goldfields, and Lasseter, who had plenty of form elsewhere, had a mutual acquaintance, one W. F. Roberts; assayer for John Baileys, Arnheim Land Gold, and the return addressee if the Japanese consul cared to contact Lasseter about some valuable information for sale. According to E. H. Coote, Lasseter and Roberts were business partners. 

In August 1931, W. F. Roberts backed Mullard on an expedition to the Warburton Ranges to relocate “a large auriferous quartz reef” he had allegedly discovered in 1900, coincidentally, the same year Lasseter and Harding were in the vicinity sampling a reef, fourteen miles long and assaying three ounces to the ton. Mullard claimed his reef shed a floater containing seven ounces of gold. 

Mullard’s introduction to the Lasseter story answers a few questions about Lasseter’s movements and intentions, his seemingly useless trek to Lake Christopher now has a purpose, and his complaint to Blakeley about 150 miles too far north at Mount Leisler has some foundation. Lasseter’s intentions were quite clear, he was after Mullard’s Reef.    

This article appeared in The Australian Worker on Wednesday the 16th September 1931, the highlighted passage links to Lasseter's Diary, a questionable document that was not discovered until the following month, a fine example of a pre discovery so to speak. Also an excellent example of a post discovery with Lasseter's gold specimens. Mark Twain was quite right, thus Australian history is writ.

The Milwaukee Journal. 14/07/1931. Death in Desert Again Ends Search for Gold Canberra, Australia – A nomad tribe of desert blacks has bought the skeleton of “possum” Lasseter to the outskirts of civilization and there ends a story of an attempt to obtain gold from the arid heart of the Australian continent. There have been many reports of gold in the central Australian desert. Some gold has been found but many lives have been lost. Lasseter’s expedition was the best equipped, but it ended, like the others, in death. A little more than a year ago Lasseter struggled out of the interior with a story of gold in the dread Petermann ranges and a company was formed to equip an expedition. Two airplanes, a camel and a tribe of blacks co operated in placing stores of food, water and gasoline along the route to the ranges. Lasseter was left at the most distant base to await the main party. The first airplane crashed and the pilot barely escaped with his life and then the second plane met with a similar fate and its crew was rescued after privations. Through all this Lasseter waited. Finally he tried to make his way out of the “great thirst” and perished. The only clue to his claim is a prospector’s rough chart in the possession of his widow.

 LASSETERIA

© R.Ross. 1999-2006