AERIAL SURVEY

Hokitika Guardian, 14 August 1933, Page 7

AERIAL SURVEY

OF CENTRAL AUSTRALIA

PROSPECTS OF DEVELOPMENT

' SYDNEY July 20. Tile Mackey aerial expedition, which returned to Sydney on Sunday afternoon after its special survey of Central and North-western Australia, covered a total area of 230,000 square miles. According to a member of the expedition, only about one-eighth of that vast area could be described as desert, and the remainder would carry stock providing there was a practicable scheme of water conservation.

i This is the fifth expedition financed personally by Mr Mackey and it appears to have done excellent work. It will be interesting to see what action the Federal Government will take following the receipt of a special report prepared by the leader. He complains that he does not know wliat happened to his previous reports. They may have been placed in a pigeon-hole or dropped into the waste paper basket. He says lie was amazed that he should have had little encouragement from the Federal Government.

Mr Mackey said that generally he ' was very satisfied with the results of the latest expedition. He was convinced ! that dlis outlay was justified in the ! ortfifib of exploration and in order to | make the centre of Australia more j widely known. The only hope of the | country traversed was in the direction of stock raising and mining. He wns firmly convinced that gold wa s there and be would not be discouraged from that view. In country where one would not imagine that human beings could live, one would find natives—an indication that there must he water there. The country would carry stock in a fairly big way some day, although there were extensive stretches that would not carry a single rabbit.

One had to go into the heart of .Australia to appreciate the enormous size of the Continent, said Mr Mackay.” If a man was looking for gold out there, lie would feel ant-like in his smallness. He did,hot think that Central Australia would, ever carry a big population. Portion/of the country surveyed was ai renerve for the aborigines and should be left as such, since it was essential‘that tire blacks should be isolated from .the whites if they were not going tp .disappear together. . Among the discoveries made by .the party was a chain of dry salt lakes about 70 miles long in the desert country surveyed. A map of the’ country bad been prepared by Commander Bennett and will he presented to-'the Mitchell Library in Sydney.