Remote Parts of Australia.

Hokitika Guardian, 23 August 1921, Page 1

Remote Parts of Australia.

VAST RESOURCES. SYDNEY, Aug. 10 Having just completed a ha,sty investigation of certain geological formations in remote parts of Central Australia, Professor Sir Edgeworth David, of Antarctic fame, has returned to Sydney deeply impressed with the. vast artesian water, mineral and possibly oil resources that merely await development. Incidentally, the party which lie led came across evidences of glacial action near A’ellow Creek—now a most torrid locality—which he declares that the word stupendous is insufficient to describe and which will constitute that locality a happy hunting ground for geologists for all time. Nothing so remarkable of this nature, ho says, was found by him or bis colleague Sir Douglas Afawson in the Antarctic. But it is in regard to the resources above referred to that Sir Edgeworth is most emphatic, and he is moving the Australian Science Association to negotiate with the Federal Government to undertake immediately a comprehensive geological -survey along all the possible routes of tho projected north-south railway which will traverse the entire continent. A Federal Committee is now taking evidence" of settlers regarding this great project. To emphasise the value of possibilites of such a survey. Sir Edgeworth David cites the Federal Geological Survey of America, which, ho says, lias been performing work of great value for over 50 years, not only in co-ordinating the work of the various State geological surveys, but in taking up such matters of general scientific and economic importance as the structure and origin of the artesian water basins, tho great oilfields, and the ore deposits of copper, iron, etc., of North America.

“It is obvious,” declares Sir Edgeworth David, “that from the strategic standpoint, not a day should be lost, in view of the colossal war preparations in the Far East, in constructing a line either from Oodnadatta to Pine Creek- the present southern terminus from Darwin—or from Cloneurry, in Queensland, to Darwin. Both lines sb'-nld surely be constructed sooner or Inter. AA'hile this extreme strategic urgency exists, a Federal Parliamentary Committee, is inquiring into the condition for making a railway from Oodnadatta to Pine Creek. At the same time it is certainly the case that next to nothing, from the geological point ol view as regards the question of watersupply and mineral resources, is known about the vast area which eithei of theno lines would traverse, and the inquiry by the Federal Parliamentary Committee should certainly be supplemented by a. reliable geological report. It is practically certain that the Federal Government Bureau of Science and Industry will move in the matter.