HIDDEN WEALTH.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 20, 25 January 1927, Page 7

HIDDEN WEALTH.

ROMANCE OF SEARCH.

Austrian's Invention to See

Underground.

OIL PROSPECTING. ~ (By Cable.—Press Association. —Copyright.) 'Received 11.30 a.m.) LONDON. January 24. The ''Daily News" says that another chapter in the romance of man's search for the world's hidden mineral wealth has opened by the recent developments of a method of seeing underground by electricity. Research tests are being made in Persia with a view to extending the application of the new process to prospecting for oil and minerals. It is expected to save millions of pounds by replacing costly boring methods and at the same time safeguarding investors against wild cat schemes. The discovery is the outcome of investigations made by an Austrian engineer, who in the war time when engaged in listening in to enemy conversations by means of wireless earth telephones, noted the different conductivity of various rocks and minerals. The latest is a German apparatus, which includes a portable alternating dynamo and iron rods, which are driven into the earth roughly a mile apart to serve as electrones for the transmission of current earthwards. The receiving gear consists of a frame and aerial connected with an amplifier and earphones. The listener, by moving the aerial, is enabled to draw a diagram indicating the deflections of the earth currents from which the position and depth of any mineral deposit of water or oil can be ascertained. —(Sydney "Sun.")