University of Adelaide

Amongst the old records in the Tate Museum in the Mawson Building at the University of Adelaide there is some 1938 correspondence between Randall STAFFORD (who developed Coniston Station, northwest of Alice Springs, in 1923), Dr Cecil MADIGAN (Lecturer in Geology & Mineralogy, University of Adelaide) and Dr Richard THOMAS (CSIRO)

STAFFORD had written a letter to MADIGAN on 16 November 1938 accompanied by rock samples, including this pegmatite, which contains large black crystals of what Stafford thought was wolframite – (Fe,Mn)WO₄, an important source of tungsten. The sample came from a hill located 4 miles south of Brooks Soak on the south side of Granite Range. Stafford asked Madigan for his opinion in advance of potentially lodging a claim over the site with the Mining Warden in Alice Springs, in partnership with Madigan. He also commented on a tin prospect in the general area, over which he proposed to peg two claims in partnership with Madigan.

The pegmatite specimen accompanying the correspondence.

It appears that Madigan sent the pegmatite sample to Richard THOMAS (CSIRO Division of Animal Nutrition; an analytical chemist and a former a student of Sir Douglas MAWSON) for detailed analysis. In a letter to Madigan dated December 3, 1938, Thomas identified the black crystals as ‘wolframite with isomorphous intergrowth of columbite’ and suggested that if there was a sufficient amount of this material identified in the field the area should be pegged. He bemoaned the fact that he and Madigan could not be in the field with Stafford to examine directly the geological relationships of the sample. He commented ‘I am more than ever convinced of the existence of many valuable and undetermined mineral associations in the granitic areas of Central Australia and this latest find confirms my faith still further.’ Finally, he asked Madigan to arrange for Stafford to send additional samples, including quartz and feldspars from the matrix of the pegmatite, for him to examine. Apart from the tungsten, iron, manganese, niobium and tantalum in the original sample, he remarked on ‘certain peculiarities’ which remained unexplained.

A telegram dated 15December 1938 from Stafford to Madigan stated: ‘APPLYING TODAY. THREE CLAIMS. TWO TWENTY ACRE ON TIN ONE. SIXTY ON LAST. SAMPLES SENT. WARDEN SAYS I MUST BE APPOINTED YOUR AGENT. REGARDS. STAFFORD.

The correspondence stops here but, lurking in the ‘background’ and 10 years earlier, Brooks Soak was the focus of a murder and a subsequent massacre, as indicated in the following extract: (https://www.commonground.org.au/article/coniston-massacre). “The Coniston Massacre occurred after a white dingo trapper, Fred Brooks, was murdered on Coniston Station in 1928. Brooks’ body was found with traditional weapons in a shallow grave. After his death, a reprisal party was formed and led on horseback by Mounted Constable George Murray. The party was made up of both civilians and police. Over a period of several months over 60 Aboriginal women, men, and children were killed at different sites. These events became known as the Coniston Massacre. Two Warlpiri men, Arkikra and Padygar, were arrested for the murder of Brooks. They were held in Darwin before being acquitted (found not guilty). There are many accounts by Aboriginal eye-witnesses that point to Kamalyarrpa Japanangka, also known as ‘Bullfrog’, as the true killer of Brooks.

In 1928, scarcity of resources like food and water had led to tensions between settlers and Aboriginal people across the Central Australian region. Accounts from 1928 highlight that Brooks was killed due to breaching Warlpiri marriage law. Brooks had been living at a waterhole called Yurrkuru, on Coniston station near a group of Warlpiri people, including Bullfrog. While Brooks did not have an Aboriginal wife, many first-person accounts highlight that he placed demands on Bullfrog’s wives, and secondary accounts suggest he may have sexually assaulted one of his wives.

Marriage law was governed by Aboriginal law during this time and breaking that law was a punishable offence. The violence that erupted at Coniston highlights the cultural misunderstandings that often created conflict throughout early colonisation. According to Warlpiri law, Bullfrog acted lawfully in exercising his traditional Aboriginal marriage law. But the consequences of the reprisal massacre were devastating for Aboriginal people across the region. Warlpiri, Anmatyerre, and Kaytetye people mourn the loss of family who were killed during the Coniston Massacre.”

**Left**: Brooks Soak, 1928. **Right**: Fred Brooks’ grave, 1928. (*Michael Terry collection of negatives of his expeditions and travels, 1918-1971*)

**Top**. May showing the geology around Brooks Soak. Large circle encompasses the site south of Brooks Soak where the wolframite pegmatite was collected. Small circle is Coniston Station HS. From: Napperby 1:250 000 map sheet, Bureau of Mineral Resources, Geology & Geophysics, Department of National Development **Bottom**. Google Earth image of the same area showing the arid landscape.

Dr Tony Milnes, University of Adelaide.

Richard Grenfell THOMAS (1901-1974) was a mineralogist and biochemist and we’ve ‘rediscovered’ him because many rock and mineral samples he collected are housed in the Tate Museum in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Adelaide.

At age 18, in 1919, he joined the Herbert BASEDOW expedition to provide medical assistance to Aboriginal communities in outback South Australia and Queensland. While at the University he was a contemporary of and good friends with Mark OLIPHANT (nuclear physicist) and Reg SPRIGG (geologist). THOMAS graduated from the University in 1924, having completed a thesis entitled ‘A remarkable occurrence of monazite’¹ under the supervision of Prof. Douglas MAWSON in our Department (then Geology & Mineralogy). For this, he was awarded the Tate Memorial Medal for ‘the best original work in Australasian geology embodied in a thesis’² . He went on to do post-graduate work with MAWSON, and later joined the Australian Radiation Corporation to develop techniques for the extraction of U, Ra, Sc and V from Radium Hill ores.

THOMAS returned to the University in 1928 to work under Prof. Brailsford ROBERTSON in the Biochemistry Department which subsequently became CSIRO’s Division of Animal Nutrition. Here, THOMAS played an important role in the identification of ‘coast disease’, a wasting disease in sheep raised on the calcareous soils in near-coastal regions in southern and western Australia, and he suggested trace element deficiency, particularly of Co, as the likely cause.

In 1959, THOMAS moved to Melbourne to become Chief of the new CSIRO Division of Mineral Chemistry, from which he retired in 1961. His main research role was to do with non-metallic minerals and ceramics. However, a quirky claim to greater fame came in collaboration with a colleague, Joy BEAR, when they became interested in the smell of first rains on soil: this was initially called ‘argillaceous odour’ but he renamed it ‘petrichor’. Their work in identifying this smell was initially published in Nature³ in 1964 .

Richard Thomas with Joy Bear, probably 1964. Image from H. Poynton, ‘The Conversation’, March 31, 2015.

THOMAS died in 1974: his ashes were scattered over Mt Painter (near Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary in the northern Flinders Ranges) and a memorial plaque erected there by his friend, Reg SPRIGG.

^[1] RG Thomas (1924). A monazite-bearing pegmatite near Normanville.  Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, 48, 258-268 (+2 plates).
[2] Sunday Mail, 13 December 1924.
[3] Bear, IJ & Thomas, RG (1964).  Nature of argillaceous odour.  Nature, No. 4923, March 1964, 993-995.

Dr Tony Milnes, Earth Sciences, University of Adelaide

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Archived correspondence about a pegmatite – and a sinister association

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