MAPPING NEW GUINEA ABOVE THE CLOUDS Difficult Geodetic Survey

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30064, 23 February 1963, Page 8

MAPPING NEW GUINEA ABOVE THE CLOUDS Difficult Geodetic Survey

[By RONALD UcCVAIG, for ths Australian News and Information Bureau]

CANBERRA. pROBABLY the most difficult geodetic survey ever made in Australian territory began late in 1962 and is expected to last until the end of November. This is a major mapping survey from the north coast of New Guinea, near Madang, to the Gulf of Papua in the south, across some of the world’s most rugged mountain country.

The survey is part of the over-all mapping scheme which will produce the first maps of Papua and New Guinea made from combined aerial and ground surveys.

Mapping New Guinea

Two separate surveys are being made. One is of the main backbone of New Guinea. The other is a survey of the coast under cloud cover

The Army is carrying out the coastal survey with landing craft and helicopters. They have surveyed from Port Moresby to Milne Bay and propose to go along the north coast this year. The National Mapping Division of the Commonwealth Department of National Development is organising the survey across the mountain backbone. To make the maps a combination of air photographs and ground surveys is required. Both these operations are extremely difficult. They involve photographing mountainous country almost always covered by cloud and combining the jobs of explorers

and mountaineers in getting survey instruments through rain jungle to the peaks of huge mountains. Few Days Of Clear Weather Commercial aerial survey planes photograph from 5000 to 7000 square miles of New Guinea a year for the Mapping Division. They go up and wait for the clouds to clear. They get most of their pictures in a few days of clear weather every year.

Meanwhile survey officers climb more than 15,000 ft to erect survey beacons. The beacons are going up on a pattern of mountains from north to south coast: Mount Wilhelm (15,400 ft Mount Otto (11,613 ft Mount Hagen flu, 120 ft), Mount Gilevue (13,414 ft Mount Michael (12,500 ft Mount Karimui (7000 ft Mount Murray (6900 ft), and Mount Favenc (6060 ft

From the tops of the mountains, thousands of feet above the clouds, tellurometer units line up mountain top with mountain top, defining the triangles which are the basis of surveying and measuring distances with radio waves In those supreme lonelinesses, far in the sky and many times farther from civilisation, they sometimes work at night with signal lights. The survey beacon systems have a further purpose; they are the means by which aerial survey photographs can be pieced together into complete maps.

Stay At Summit Of

Mount Wilhelm

The ground part of the Madang Gulf of Papua survey is under the control of Mr A. J. Midgley, Senior Surjo tuaurj-mdaa atfl jo joZsa Lands, Surveys and Mines.

His party Includes seven survey officers operating seven tellurometer units.

One officer, Mr M. Erben, will be stationed at the summit of Mount Wilhelm for more than three weeks. Noone has spent such a long time at a height IS,4ooft in Papua and New Guinea. But in 1959 Bill Johnson spent a fortnight on top of Mount Victoria, to the east of present operations, waiting for the weather to clear. Weakened by shortage of rations and the effects of the altitude (13,000 ft he arrived at Onange Mission "physically and literally starving.” In these mountains it is not merely the climbing that is difficult; living off the land is impossible. An attendant New Guinea police officer developed foot ulcers, blankets opened from the bearers* packs steamed with moisture and lead pencils came unstuck in the humidity. Medical Attention So it is not surprising that it was decided to have Mr Erben medically examined both before and after his three weeks’ stay on Mount Wilhelm—and no doubt similar attention will be paid to Mr J. Cavill, who Is spending the whole eight weeks of the survey on the summit of 7000 ft Mount Karimui.

The New Guinea and Papua survey is part of the big job of mapping the whole of Australia and Australian Territories which has been going ahead under the co-ordination of the Division of National Mapping of the Commonwealth Department of National Development.

The mapping of Australia is almost completed. All the New Guinea surveys will be connected to Australian surveys by an airborne radar survey carried out by the Air Force of the United States of America, probably in 1964. This means that maps of New Guinea and Australia will be connected by one continuous survey.