Reference: see SA Australiana Study Group 68th Meeting, 12 August 2021, notes: Views on the Port Augusta and Government Gums Railway, South Australia: No. 1. Saltia township. Australasian Sketcher, 19 June 1880. Wood engraving on paper. 17.8 x 22.7cm
Three wood engravings made after photographs by Captain Samuel Sweet (1825-1886), South Australia’s preeminent colonial landscape photographer. Sweet travelled extensively in
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regional South Australia, documenting structures and developments associated with the South Australian Railways. Saltia, located halfway between Port Augusta and Quorn in the Pichi Richi Pass, was an important stopover point during the pioneering period of settlement of the Southern Flinders Ranges. The Pass, forged by a large contingent of navvies stationed at Quorn, opened to rail traffic in 1879, forming the first stage of the Great Northern Railway connecting Port Augusta with The Government Gums (now known as Farina). The line was extended to Oodnadatta in 1891, and the link to Alice Springs was completed in 1929. Saltia Hotel, built in 1859, was associated with the Kite and later the Lyons/Hughes families in the 1860s and 70s. Today nothing remains of the building.
Another engraved variant view, also based on Sweet’s photograph Saltia, Pichi Richi Pass (c.1879) (Coll. SLSA), featured in Garran’s Picturesque Atlas of Australasia (Vol. II, 1886, p.460), rendered from an ink wash drawing by American illustrator Fredric Schell (1838- 1902), (Coll. AGSA). The engraved version made from Schell’s wash drawing was subsequently adapted for other publications, such as Cassell’s Picturesque Australasia, published in Melbourne in 1889 (Vol. IV, p141). Thus Sweet’s captivating birds-eye view, an image at once emblematic of colonial progress and remote charm, reached a wide audience.
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Sketches on the Government Gums Railway, South Australia: No.2. Quorn. Australasian Sketcher, 3 July 1880. Wood engraving on paper.
17.6 x 22.7cm
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Starting point of the Great Northern Railway, South Australia. [Port Augusta]. Australasian Sketcher, 22 October 1881, p.349. Wood engraving on paper 13.9 x 21.2cm
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