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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Burke and Wills Dig Tree | 3/4 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_and_Wills_Dig_Tree | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T12:39:52.548626+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== Rescue Attempts === When it became known that the Burke and Wills expedition had foundered, such was the prominence of the undertaking that a number of search parties were quickly organized. Howitt left from Melbourne, John McKinlay from Adelaide, Frederick Walker from Rockhampton, and William Landsborough from Brisbane. Howitt's party, which included Brahe and King (? King was living with the Aboriginies), arrived at Camp LXV on 13 September 1861. The Royal Commission was told that they found the depot as Mr Brahe had left it, the plant untouched, and nothing removed of the useless things lying about, but a piece of leather. The party located Wills' remains where his body had been covered by King, some miles downstream of Camp LXV. They buried Wills on 18 September 1861, and inscribed a tree. Field books, notebooks and various small articles were recovered. Three days later and approximately seven miles away, Howitt found Burke's remains near Innamincka Waterhole (two miles north of Innamincka) in South Australia. Burke was buried wrapped in a Union Jack, under a box tree on the south-eastern bank of Cooper's Creek. Howitt blazed this tree at the head of Burke's grave. The Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, organised to promote exploration, awarded Burke a posthumous RGS Founder's Medal in 1862. Wills was awarded nothing, as the Society's policy was to award only one medal to an exploration party. King received a gold watch, as did McKinlay, Landsborough and Walker for leading their various search parties. These search parties helped open up vast areas of inland Australia for settlement, as a result of the increased knowledge of the country they brought back with them. McKinlay had travelled northwards across the Cooper, to Gray's grave, and on to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Landsborough came from the north, via the Barkly Tableland to the Cooper and then Menindee, and Walker arrived to find Burke's last camp, thence returning eastwards. By the time the public funeral for Burke and Wills was held in January 1863, pastoralists were driving their sheep and cattle up the Bulloo. Within a decade or so there were established homesteads on the banks of Cooper's Creek, including Nappa Merrie sheep station, taken up by John Conrick in 1873. Prospectors working their way north of Menindee found enormously rich deposits of silver, lead and zinc at Piesse's Knob, later better known as Broken Hill.
=== The Dig Tree === While working on the survey of the border between Queensland and South Australia, surveyor Alexander Salmond passed by Cooper's Creek and made a pencil sketch of the tree. Called in 1911 by the Sydney Mail "William Brahe's Tree", an accompanying photograph showed a "DIG" inscription on the right-hand branching trunk partly overgrown with bark, obscuring the "D". Another blaze on the left-branching trunk showed some indecipherable letters and/or numerals. Surviving remnants of Brahe's stockade also are visible in the photograph. In 1928 the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia referred to the tree as better known as the "Depot Tree", alluding to its function of marking a major stopping and storage place for the expedition. Frank Clune's 1937 book Dig has been credited with changing the tree's popular, and still-current name, to the "Dig Tree". This particular tree had initially received less attention because it was not immediately associated with the deaths of either man. But by the 1880s the various explorers' trees marked by members of the expedition and by the various search parties had become valued by Australians as relics worthy of protection. The Dig Tree eventually came to be regarded as central to the story of the expedition, partly as a result of John Longstaff's iconic 1907 painting exhibited in the National Gallery of Victoria, The Arrival of Burke, Wills and King at the deserted Camp at Coopers Creek.
The Dig Tree has been considered of historical significance to Queensland for much of the 20th century. In 1937 the Conrick Plaque, erected by members of the first Anglo-Australian family to occupy Yandruwandha/Yawarrawarrka and Wanggumara land, was placed on a cairn near the Dig Tree. On 2 July 1964 the Queensland Government declared an area of approximately one acre surrounding the Dig Tree a reserve for memorial purposes, the land placed under the trusteeship of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland. The Stanbroke Pastoral Company currently manages the site on behalf of the Society. The Department of Environment & Heritage erected interpretative signage in 1993. In 1996–1997 further signage was prepared by the Department of Environment, in consultation with the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, Bulloo Shire Council, and the Stanbroke Pastoral Company. Funded by Dick Smith's Australian Geographic publication, these new interpretative panels were erected c. 1997. Subsequently, boardwalks were built to protect the Dig and Face Trees, and toilets were built in February 2001. The Face Tree is located on the same reserve as the Dig Tree. It portrays the face of Robert O'Hara Burke and the letters ROHB, thought to have been carved in 1898 by John Dick.
== Description ==
The Dig Tree is located approximately four to six kilometres southwest of Nappa Merrie homestead, on a Reserve for Memorial Purposes. The Reserve of 4,470 square metres (48,100 sq ft) is excised from Nappa Merrie cattle station, which comprises almost three-quarters of a million hectares of Channel Country. The homestead is close to the South Australian border, lying some 380 kilometres (240 mi) west of Thargomindah and forty-four kilometres east of Innamincka.