UNDEVELOPED RESOURCES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVII, Issue 63, 14 July 1915, Page 4

UNDEVELOPED RESOURCES.

Reference was made in Australian cablegrams a few days ago to the discovery by the Germans that the Australian grass-tree gum could lie "sod for the manufacture of a pew •rl't:’ e*’,plosive, and that in fact the Germans had been drawing upon Australia for supplies of this little-known or liltle-valued raw product, says m* Christchurch Press. A Sydney clu m istry expert gives a description of this gum t\ucl its astonishing value in tho

making of war material. “The manufacture of the material for charging tlie shells presents no very serious difficulty,” this expert says in a current issue of the ‘‘Sydney Morning Herald.” “We have abundant supplies ot yellow grass tree-gum. which consists ol about ('•.> per cent, ot picric acid. Practically unlimited supplies may be obtained from the neighbourhood of Bateman’s Bay or Clyde River district: and as .Japan and Germany have found this gum a very excellent explosive, and it has been tested in Sydney and proved of groat power, here is a supply of raw material at hand. The charge would have to be a mixture of a percentage of nitroglycerine. with tlie grass tree-gum, hut about 1 o per cent, ol intro-gly-cerine would be the maximum.’ Clearly there are enormous resources as yet undeveloped in Australia, and very likely in Now Zealand also, which will in all probability in time make these lands independent of outside supplies for munitions of battle.