Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1900-09-23

F5fty-two years ago an explorer left
Sydney. New South Wales, to cross
what then was an entirely unknown
prfmeval wilderness with the intention
81 emerging at or near the mouth Of
the Swan River, in West Australia. He
never reappeared. For more than forty
years he has been given uD as dead.
For a decade other explorations, the
achievements OF new explorers and all
the great crowding of mighty events
made men forget that such an expedi-
rion had been. And now. more than
half a century after his forgotten de-
parture on mis- brave quest, the col
onies OF Australia have united in fur
nishing means for a determined effort
TO find him.
For OUT OF the middle OF what still
Is the unknown country there has come
q strange story. 1t tells of an old, old
white man living alone with a race of
bushmen. And those who have stud
led 1t feel sure that the man is DR..
Ludwig Leichardt, who marched west
ward from Sydney on February 18th,
1S4S
Officially the government under
whose auspices the searching expedi-
l1044 10 DClUS lOt lht4 cdllilto Onty tns&I
the hope is to find some relic of the
tated explorer and his party. Gov
ernlnenIs do not like to admit at any
time that they are pursuing what 9th
er countries might term a will o. the
wisp But the fact is still that this
|story of the lonely old white man is
&waal is at the bottom OF the new deter
minati0n to trace the route of the LEIGH
hardt expedition.
Should they succeed in finding this
man, before his story there will pale
all stories that ever have been told of
men buried alive. In the same year
that he disappeared Franklin sailed
on his last voyage for the North Pole.
There was no transatlantic cable.
Gold had not been discovered in Aus
AIralsa or in California. Men were still
Hrapped and held by brawny assist
nts during a surgical operation, for
ther had not been discovered. The
living machine was unknown. There
II been no RuSso-Turkish war, no
iii war, no Franco-Prussian war.
lea was a sealed book. Electricity
scarcely known and its wonders
unsupported DR.. Leichardt if he
ktACc 'DftSh lulO OiF1iiLbllOH dllNC, Will
ybe an old man Che was born in 1879,
who still is as a child awakened, for
he will look on new world. NO
dreamer OF modern times, no reveler
in visions OF to-day, rioting in wild
conceptions of the world of a thousand
years hence, has imagined such mar
Vels as this buried man will see. And
this world will have seen few such
maryels as himself.
When DR.. Leichardt first conceived
the wish to explore Anstrell9s inner
wilderness nothing was known about
the continent except its shore line.
Indeed, it was not until 1852 that even
this was fully known. He reached
Sydney Ia 1871, after having studied
several years in Goettingen, Paris and
London in order to be well equipped
with all available knowledge for his
undertaking. After reaching Australia
be lived in the bush for some time to
harden himself, and it was not until
1874 that he started on his first trip
II was from Moreton, on the east
coast to Port Essington, on the north
coast and the voyage was full of
hardslips 10 food and water gave
ont while he was crossing the desert.
1t was December, 1845, one year and
four months after starting, that he
reached his goal, and when he got back
to Sydney it was 10 find he had been
given up long before as dead and that
his funeral had been held Naturally,
he was received with wild enthusiasm,
which grew when his reports showed
that he had found new land of great
wealth. 1t was the territory that now
is Queensland, and SO deeply were the
Australians impressed with the value
OF his discoveries that they gave him
large awards, which he used as once
for a second voyage. This time his
plan was nothin gless than to cross the
entire continent from east to west.
and in 1886 he started from Darling
Downs with provisions for two years.
But illness and the encouragement
among his men forced him to return
in the middle Of the following year.
Then the government OF New South
Wales fitted him out with splendid
equipment and on February %, 1913,
he started again with three blacks and
four white men, They took with them
horses, twenty mules and forty head of
cattle. On April letter was brought
into Sydney by one OF the blacks with
the news that all were we'll 1t was
dated from the Cogun river, and that is
the last that has ever been heard from
Dr. I4eichart himself
For three years little fear was en-
tertained about him and his compan-
ions, as he had calculated that that
length of time would elapse before he
could reach the west coast. When moth
ing was heard from him in the fourth
year after his departure Hoveden-H ely
tried to follow his track, but failed.
Then came the exciting times of gold
finds in Australia, and it was 1855 be-
fore TWO travellers, Gregory and Won
Mueller, tried again to find DR.. LEIGH
ardt They made their way. after in
credible hardships, to the middle of the
continent, but We're forced then, owing