Rivers of Rubies: The History of the Ruby Rush in Central Australia

The great ruby rush of the 1880s brought in hundreds of hopefuls who opened up desert country but collapsed when the gem markets dashed the prospectors hopes. The rubies were actually garnets. However the great influx led to further prospecting in the area and an interest in the ‘dead heart.’  Central Australia is many hundreds of millions of years old and aborigines may have been living in that part of Australia for less than fifty thousand years.  John Stuart was the first European to travel through the centre of Australia to the north coast in 1862.  To the west of the Simpson Desert, no European had crossed from south to north until  Stuart finally succeeded.