EMPIRE SURVEY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 21, 26 January 1933, Page 9

EMPIRE SURVEY.

AERIAL PROJECT.

TRADE WOULD BENEFIT.

PLANS BEING PREPARE®.

Plana are being -prepared in Britain for a concerted effort to make deta;iled maps of tlie "whole of the British Dominions by means of air survey. The scheme is that of Mr. H. Hemming, of England, a leading authority, "who proposes to form an association "which will be independent of Governmental control or of commercial interests.

The association "will use its influence to co-ordinate the many interests that can benefit from air surveying, so as to ensure that the services this new work can render to Empire and trade development are made full use of. This should result in the building up of an Imperial air survey organisation, which would in no way interfere with the existing British operating companies. It is estimated that about four-fifths of the Empire is inadequately mapped, and much of it hardly at aIL Detailed maps will not only be immensely valuable in revealing surface conditions, but should be the means of finding hidden sources of wealth in regions which remain even now only partly explored. The main instrument in the work would be the air camera. By its use the work of the ground surveyor may be speeded up and extended. While providing a great deal of the topographical data required by the ground survevor the air photograph also contains valuable information relating to the economic resources of the territory surveyed. During the past few years British companies have photographed from the air thousands of square miles of territory in Africa, Asia and South America. In some cases regions have been mapped in one-tenth of the time and at less than one-quarter of the cost of a purely ground survey. Under Mr. Hemming's proposal, no financial assistance is asked for from the Government. It is considered that by securing the co-ordination of interests concerned, finance will be forthcoming from those benefiting from the surveys.