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Lyttelton Times, Volume LVII, Issue 6511, 9 January 1882, Page 6

In a dark cellar of the Julius tower at Spandau, Prussia, lies a vast bulk of gold equal to about thirty million dollars, laid aside from Germany's gains by the war of 1870-71, as a provision of hard cash wherewith to defray the mobilisation and other preliminary expenses of the next campaign undertaken by the empire. Ibis fund is absolutely unproductive, and is said to have cost the German nation half its total amount in foregone interest since it was first lodged in the subterranean repository. According to an English geographical writer, there are four vast areas still to be opened up or traversed by civilised man, and which, among them, constitute about one* seventeenth of the whole area of the globe, Of these, there is in the antarctic region, which in extent is about sovontyflvo times that of Groat Britain j the second lies about the north polo j the third is in Central Africa; and the fourth in Western Australia. The vast African are* reaches on the west very closely to the coast. In Australia, the groat undeveloped region is that which lies west of the track explored from north to south by Stuart, and which now forms the line of telegraphic communication across that continent.