GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 515, 19 November 1928, Page 16

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

WORK IN KING COUNTRY CURING STOCK ILLNESSES (From Our Own Correspondent) TE KUITI, Saturday. A geological survey of the King Country is being undertaken by Mr. H. T. Ferrar, M.A., F.G.S., and a party, under the auspices of the Scientific and Industrial Research Committee, of Wellington. Mr. Ferrar has had an adventurous career. He was engaged in geological surveys in Egypt for ten years, and accompanied Captain Scott’s first Antarctic expedition in 1901-1904. spending two and a-half years in the Antarctic. During the war he saw service with the New Zealand Mounteds in Egypt and Palestine. A start will be made to the westward of Te Kuiti, and the party will work toward Marakopa, and link up with the surveyed districts of Taranaki and Auckland. The work will extend over three summers, ahd will include the area between the Waipa Valley to the West Coast, and from Mangapehi to Otorohanga. According to Mr. Ferrar’s observations the chief cause of the trouble with stock in some parts of the district ! is due to certain areas being covered with a rhylitic ash of volcanic origin, this causing a lack of calcium, or boneforming qualities in the soil. The object of the survey is to combat the trouble of sheep and cattle sickness to be found in certain areas by first studying the economic mineral qualities of the soil, and then applying the remedies. Mr. Ferrar is very optimistic of finding a remedy for this trouble. Mr. Wright, of the chemistry branch of the Agricultural Department, is working in conjunction with Mr. Ferrar.