AERIAL SURVEY.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20919, 28 July 1933, Page 8

AERIAL SURVEY.

| EXPEDITION TO CENTRAL AUSTRALIA. SATISFACTORY RESULTS. (JTBOM OUft OWJf COREBSI'O^DKNT.) SYDNEY, July 20. The Mockay aerial expedition which returned to Sydney on Sunday afternoon after its special survey of central and north-western Australia covered an area of 260,000 square miles. According to a mem-1 ber of the expedition, only about one-eighth of that vast area could be described as desert, and the remainder would carry stock, providing there was a practicable scheme of water conservation. This is the fifth expedition financed personally by Mr Mackay, and it appears to have done excellent work. It will be interesting to see what action the Federal Government will take after the receipt of a special report prepared by the leader. He complains that he does not know what happened to his previous reports. They might have been placed in a pigeon hole or dropped into the waste-paper basket. He was amazed that he should have had so little encouragement from the Federal Government. Cost Justified. Mr Mackay said that generally he was very satisfied with the results of the latest expedition. He was convinced that his outlay was justified in the cause of exploration, and in order to make the centre of Australia more widely known. The only hope of the country traversed was in the direction of stock-raising and mining. He was firmly convinced that gold was there, and he would not be discouraged from that view. In country where one would not Imagine that human beings could live one would find natives—an indication that there must be water there. The country would carry stock in a fairly big way some day, although there were extensive stretches that were so absolutely poor that they would not carry a single rabbit. One had to go into the heart of Australia to appreciate the enormous size of the continent, said Mr Mackay. If a man was looking for gold out there, he would feel antlike in his smallness. He did not think that Central Australia would ever carry a big population. Part of the country surveyed was a reserve for the aborigines, and should be left as such, since it was essential that the blacks should be isolated from the whites if the blacks were not going to disappear altogether. Among the discoveries made by the party was a chain of dry salt lakes about 70 miles long in the desert country surveyed. A map of the country had been prepared by Commander Bennett, and will be presented to the Mitchell Library in Sydney.