The Peaks of Lyell

“In 1883 prospectors found gold in one of the world’s most remote areas – the mountains of Tasmania’s bleak and wild West Coast.

Long after this discovery nobody realised that beneath the gold was copper. Then came a boom in which feuding rivals built railways to Mt Lyell at huge expense.

In 1912 an underground disaster at North Lyell, the worst in the history of Australian metal  mining, shocked the nation. Today the moonscape around Mt Lyell – the result of industrial pollution – is seen as a vital message by Tasmania’s strong green movement.

This fifth edition of The Peaks of Lyell has been up-dated. New chapters tell of Mt Lyell’s misfortunes in the 1970’s and 1980’s when Queenstown almost became a ghost town.

High in drama, the work of a leading historian, The Peaks of Lyell remains one of the most widely-read books about Tasmania.”