Mount Lyell

Mount Lyell is a mountain in the West Coast Range, Tasmania, named by Charles Gould in 1863 after geologist Charles Lyell, a supporter of Charles Darwin. It was also the common short name of the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company. The Mount Lyell company operations centred mainly on the shoulder between Mount Owen and Mount Lyell, and to the western side of the mountain. On the eastern side of the shoulder were the old North Mount Lyell workings, where the 1912 North Mount Lyell Disaster occurred. There was a small operation in the early days of the mining operation that was on the northern side of Mount Lyell, known as the Comstock mine. In the late twentieth century, just west of the Comstock workings was a section of the mine known as Cape Horn. The western end of the mountain has been named Cape Horn Spur, as the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company had a mine called Cape Horn in the 1970s at the west end of this spur. A railway line was planned to travel from Linda in the Linda Valley, around the southern, eastern and northern sides of Mount Lyell. The formation was built but the line was never utilised. The sides of the mountain have been subjected to bush fires, smelter fumes and high rainfall, consequently the resultant vegetation and the legacy of tree stumps give the southern sides of the mountain a unique appearance.