User:Guffydrawers/sandbox/Augustus Poeppel

Augustus Poeppel (16 April 1839 Hamburg, Germany - 4 July 1891 Melbourne, Australia) was an Australian surveyor. His name was given to Poeppel Corner, the point at which the three Australian States of South Australia, Queensland and Northern Territory meet, lying within the Simpson Desert.

Life
Poeppel was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1839, the son of an architect. His family emigrated to South Australia in 1849, later moving to Victoria. Augustus Poeppel worked as a mining surveyor and architect including periods in New Zealand and Western Australia. In 1878 he joined the South Australian Lands Department. In July 1885 he became severely ill with the eye infection trachoma, which forced him to leave the survey of the Queensland-Northern Territory border and lead to blindness in one eye. He died in 1891 in Melbourne at the age of 52.

http://eheritage.metadata.net/record/QLD-602808

The marking of the Queensland-South Australian border was undertaken in 1879-80 by the South Australian Government as the final section of a survey of its border on the 141st meridian, which had started at the Murray River.[16] William Barron was the surveyor chosen to undertake the border survey, but after surveying from the Murray River to Cameron Corner then 90 miles north to Cooper Creek, his health failed and he was forced to return to Adelaide.[17]

Surveyor Augustus Poeppel took over the survey in January 1880, assisted by Lawrence Wells. He arrived at the survey camp at Innaminka on 3 February 1880, spent the following month taking observations and preparing rations and equipment, then on 5 March, with two months' rations and the animals in good condition, the survey team returned to work. They continued the line to the 26th parallel where they met their Queensland colleague Alexander Hutchinson Salmond. Together the surveyors took star observations for latitude to fix the position at 26 degrees S and 141 degrees E (now known as Haddon Corner, named after the nearby pastoral lease). After marking the corner they continued the survey line marking the border with mileposts recording the distance from the surveying starting point at the Murray River.[18]

Then on 30 June 1880 Poeppel and his survey party began the westward survey along the 26th parallel, running a series of 10-mile chords and setting the mileposts on the arc of the parallel by calculated offsets. They experienced many hardships on this section of the survey traversing Australia's most inhospitable country - the vast waterless plains of the Sturt Stony Desert and the salt lakes and sand hills of the Simpson Desert. Their diet was salt beef and damper causing all to develop scurvy. They relied on Aboriginal people to guide them to wells as water was so scarce. They reached the final corner at 26 degrees South 138 degrees East, marking it with a timber post by the end of 1880. Drought forced them to return to Adelaide. Later the South Australian Triangulation Survey reached the border and on checking the mileposts, discovered an error in chainage and the corner post was relocated from the salt lake, Lake Poeppel, to its foreshore. Starting in 1883 Poeppel and Wells began the survey of the Queensland-South Australian border along meridian 141 degrees E.[19]

Augustus Poeppel was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1839, the son of an architect. Emigrating with his family in 1849, he settled in South Australia before moving to Victoria to become a mining surveyor and architect. In 1878, after short periods in New Zealand and Western Australia, Poeppel joined the South Australian Lands Department and was soon appointed to the border surveys. During the Queensland-Northern Territory border survey, from the 142-mile post, he suffered from trachoma and lost 13 kg in weight, forcing his withdrawal in July 1885. His health was broken and he later lost sight in one eye. He retired to Melbourne where he died in 1891 aged 52.[20]

Lawrence Wells, born in 1860 in South Australia, entered that colony's Survey Department in 1878. In the following year, at the age of 23, he joined the border surveys, eventually assisting with almost the entire survey of the Queensland-South Australian- Northern Territory borders, completed in 1886. Later Wells became a well-known explorer, known as `the last of the great inland explorers'. In 1891-92 he accompanied the Elder Scientific Exploring Expedition, which discovered the East Murchison goldfield; in 1896 he led the Calvert Scientific Exploring Expedition, investigating northern Western Australia; and in 1903 he led South Australia's North-West Prospecting Expedition. Later Wells held administrative positions in the state and federal public services, and was appointed Order of the British Empire in 1937.[21]

Since the nineteenth century, various explorers of the Simpson Desert have included a visitation to Poeppel Corner. In 1883 the corner was visited by another South Australian surveyor, Charles Winnecke who, after departing from Farina in northern South Australia, headed north-west to Poeppel Corner, later exploring the south-eastern and north-eastern sections of the desert to assess its pastoral potential. Although disappointed with his findings, he travelled deeper into the desert than anyone before him. The next explorer to visit Poeppel Corner came many years later. In 1936, Edmund Albert (Ted) Colson, a pastoralist of Blood Creek Station, near Abminga, in northern South Australia, became the first European to cross the Simpson Desert. Colson crossed from west to east, travelling along the 26th parallel from Mt Etingambara, hoping to locate the Poeppel Corner post and then follow the border mileposts to Birdsville. However, on his eastward journey, Colson missed the post by 300 metres, but located it on his return journey. To record his passing, he photographed it and nailed a tin plate to it bearing the date and his initials. Other explorations across Simpson Desert, notably those by David Lindsay in 1886 and Cecil Madigan in 1939, came close by Poeppel Corner but did not actually visit it. So, it was not until the 1960s that it was visited again, in a series of vehicular crossings made by Dr Reg Sprigg of Geosurveys Australia. By that time the original corner post had deteriorated due to white ants and dry rot, prompting Sprigg to take it to Adelaide for conservation treatment.'[22]

The area was opened up to scientific investigation and tourism by the Sprigg expeditions, together with a well-publicised crossing made in 1966 by the Leyland Brothers which proved that the Simpson Desert was accessible to four-wheel drive vehicles. In 1967 a large part of the desert became protected with the proclamation of South Australia's Simpson Desert Conservation Park and Queensland's Simpson Desert National Park; the latter being extended in 1983. By this time, interest in the desert was increasing, with many people visiting Poeppel Corner. In 1986 the Friends of the Simpson Desert Conservation Park was formed in South Australia to assist with the park's conservation. In 1989 the group erected a replica of the original post at Poeppel Corner.[23] Poeppel Corner is a well-known tourist destination today.

Given the enormous physical difficulties which the surveyors faced in the task, their survey of the Queensland-South Australian border was impressive. Today, we have the Global Positioning System (or GPS) to pinpoint place by longitude and latitude more accurately. It is now apparent that the intended corner between Queensland and South Australia at 26 degrees S 138 degrees E was not achieved. The Poeppel Corner post does not correlate with the confluence of 26 degrees South 138 degrees East as was originally intended. However, the Queensland Boundaries Declaratory Act 1982 confirmed `that each land boundary of the State ... as ... defined in the Letters Patent ... by reference to a parallel of latitude or a meridian of longitude is and always has been the boundary ... permanently fixed by marking it upon on the surface of the earth before 1900...'.[24]

The corner post as a survey mark is protected under the Survey and Mapping Infrastructure Act 2003 and the Survey and Mapping Infrastructure Regulation 2004 whereby a person must not interfere with a survey mark unless certain conditions are met.[25]

Place Description Poeppel Corner is the westernmost of Queensland's three south-western corners located at the intersection of the Queensland, South Australia and Northern Territory borders, near Lake Poeppel - a salt lake. It is approximately 300 km west of Haddon Corner [EHP application reference no. 602807] and 450 km north-west of Cameron Corner [EHP application reference no. 802806]. The site is within the Simpson Desert, a vast region in which linear dunes[26] are the main landscape feature. The confluence of 26 degrees S 138 degrees E is between Lake Poeppel (immediately to the west) and a linear dune that trends SSE-NNW a little over half a kilometre to the east. There is a discrepancy of several hundred metres between the specified latitude and longitude and the officially mapped border.[27]

Land on the Queensland side of the border is in the Simpson Desert National Park while the South Australian land is part of the Simpson Desert Conservation Park.

https://www.qld.gov.au/recreation/arts/heritage/museum-of-lands/borders/survey-qld-sa/

The survey of the Queensland – South Australian border was first carried out by South Australian surveyor, William Barron, as Queensland did not have a surveyor available at the time. Barron carried the marking of the 141st meridian up to its intersection with the 29th parallel of south latitude (Cameron Corner), and then on to Cooper Creek (90 miles north of that intersection). Barron was forced to return to Adelaide in late 1879 due to ill health. South Australian surveyors, Augustus Poeppel and assistant Lawrence Wells, took over the survey in January of 1880. The line to the 26th parallel was continued, a distance of 552¼ miles from the river Murray.

Here Poeppel met up with Queensland surveyor, Alexander Salmond. Together they took star observations for latitude using both a transit theodolite and sextant to fix the position of that parallel. They marked the corner with a willow post 12 feet long, which was sunk over an iron bar. A zinc plate which was attached to the mile posts

Courtesy of Mr A Virag

A zinc plate was attached to the mile posts

The line was marked by mile posts mounded and trenched. A zinc plate was attached to the posts declaring the distance from the centre of the Murray River.

Poeppel then continued to mark the 26th parallel to the west. He reached the 138th meridian by the end of 1880 and returned to Adelaide in March 1881 due to the prevailing drought conditions. Many hardships were encountered on this survey as the line passed through vast stony, waterless plains, salt lakes and large sand hills. It was thought to be the most inhospitable country in Australia.

While Poeppel was recuperating in Adelaide, the South Australian triangulation survey had reached beyond the border. It was found that when checking the mile posts, they were in error due to the fact that Poeppel's chain was 1 inch too long as a result of wear.

http://migration.history.sa.gov.au/collections/surveying-collection/poeppels-corner-post

http://www.simpsondesert.fl.net.au/myths/

http://www.slsa.sa.gov.au/archivaldocs/prg/PRG143_AugustusPoeppel_serieslist.pdf