Evening star., 1941-05-25
An Underground
Opel Capital
Bg Frederic J. HuSktn.

BIZ Frederic J. HaSktn.
Prophets of the future are fond Of pre-
dieting that the airplane will force the
development Of underground cities but
ironically, the worlds only town built
underground is 5000 miles from the near
est hostile warplane. Il is Coober Fedy,
village Of $50 people in the plains Of
South Australia, near the edge of the
great Nullarbor Plain.
Coober Pedy is the opal capital Of
Australia. It's population is made up Of
opal miners-gougers they are called
from the opal getter's tool, the gouge.
The houses of Coober Pedy are chambers
carved from the earth, its streets are
mine galleries and its chimneys are air
vents mined upward to the surface.
When the temperature is 12O degrees in
the shade, opal gougers stay cool in
rooms they have carved in galleries of
the mine.
This town has bank and two stores,
all underground The only thing that
shows above the surface is a doorway in
the side of a hillock. and a slgn-Com-
monwealth Savings Bank One could
drive past COober Pedy without noticing
it. or any sign of II, except a few conicaI
hillocks of earth like giants showing
above the low scrub
The towns name is from a word in
the aboriginal language, meaning white
men in hole, for the wild black tribes
men of the region do not understand
what impels the white men to live
| underground.
Coober Pedy exists because Of the lure
of opals-those firelit gems that the
! Superstitious call unlucky, and for which
Mark Antony once banished a Roman
who owned a gem he coveted for Cleo
! patra. It was Opals that lured across
/ hundreds of desert miles the tough Aus
| tralians who make up the population OF
| this underground town.
Opal is a mineral consisting almost
entirely of hydrated silica. which
through absorbing organic matter has
acquired color and a peculiar structure
that flashes light through the body
| of the gem.
/ Opal mineral is abundant in Australia.
/ One gouger found a $500 chunk Of opal
| in his kitchen wall when he was widen
| ing the chimney shaft. As the opal dirt
lies near the surface, most Of the dug
/ out homes are not more than 10 or Is
! feet below the ground. Above IS the hard
! crust of the ridge known to the gougers
as Grey Billy" the extreme hardness
of which makes timberIng unnecessary
| TO support roofs.
Coober Pedy IS an example Of mans
ability TO adapt his living to the toughest
! environment. Above the ground, the
terrain is not unlike the dry plain coun-
try of Texas or New Mexico. This is
/ understandable. for there has been a
drought for 2OOOO,OOO years in Central
Australia. Slowly the dWindling Of rains,
or shifting OF the earth's crust. dried
up the shallow inland sea that covered
! Central Australia. The vast limits of
this dried sea mark the minimum ram
fall area of what Australians call THE
/ Center" or more romantically, Dead
Heart" It explains why Australia
/ 100000 people live on the rich coastal
/ areas of the east. tWo-thirds of the pop
/ ulation living in Melbourne and Sydney.
John Macdouall Stuart was the first
white man to cross the Australian con-
/ tinent from north to south. That was
barely 80 years ago. Only this year has
a road been built to link the north and
south across The Center, The heat is
! fearful For instance, near Perth, West
ern Australia, is the town Of Marble Bar
that recently established a record Of lO7
consecutive days above 100 degrees
Fahrenheit This is the physical back
ground to the conditions that drove the
town of Coober Pedy underground
Gold has always Iured men into the
desert. and the story Of AuStrala's Dead
Heart is rich III tales of brave proSpec-
tors fighting thirst and loneliness for
gold One such legend is Lasseters
Lost Reef a tale Of a prOSpector who
found a fabulous reef in the sands OF
the Never Never, and died Of thirst be-
| fore he could return to his riches It
was a gold prospector who stumbled on
the opal fields Of Coober Pedy while
searching for gold.
In The Center, the only big remnant
of the vast sea is Lake Eyre, thinning
swamp of lt-encrusted muddy water
The great rivers of Central Australia
look big on the map, but one can drive
/ over them between rains. The rivers
! disappear in the sand, and it requires
an artesian bore of up to 5000 feet TO
/ raise the precious water again.
Lake Cadibawawirracanna IS another
| vestige Of the inland sea and empty lakes
! have the longest names. Lake Cadibar-
| raWIrracanna is the nearest geographical
| item to Coober Pedy. Until the coming
| of the white man, the wild nomad blacks
of the desert hunted these desolate soil
| tudes, seeking the shy rnarsupial wild life
| OF the desert with boomerang and spear.
Then the line of the Transcontinental
Railway pushed its way across the tree
| less plain of Nullarbor in one place for
| a straight line of 400 miles without a
| single turn. ProspeCtors wandered into
the desert with equipment, which they
used to separate the alluvial gold in a
WaterleSS land.
The proSpector who discovered the