VAST RESOURCES

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 41, 17 August 1921, Page 9

VAST RESOURCES

REMOTE PARTS OF AUSTRALIA

' A PROFESSOR'S TOUR,

(HlOll OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

SYDNEY,' 10th August. ' Having, just, completed a hasty mr vestigation of certain geological formations in .remote parts of Central Australia, Professor Sir Edgeworth David, of Antarctic fame,- has returned to Syd-~ ney deeply impressed ■with the vast artesian water, mineral, and,, possibly, oil resources that merely await development. Incidentally the party which he led came across evidence of glacial action near Yellow Creek—now a most torrid locality—■■which he declares that the word stupendous is insufficient to describe, and wftiich 'will constitute that locality a happy -hunting eround for geologists for all time. Nothing so remarkable of . this nature, he says, was found by him or , hija colleague, Sir Douglas Mawson, in the Antarctic. But it is in regard to the resources above referred to that Sir Edgewarth is most emphatic, and he is moving the Australasian Science Association to negotiate with, the Federal Government to undertake immediately a. comprehensive geological survey.along all the.passible routes of the projected North-South railway, which will traverse the entire continent. A Federal committee is now .taking 1 -evidence of settlers regarding this great project. To emphasise the value off possibilities of such a survey, ) SiT Edgeworth David cites the Federal Geological Survey of America, which, he Bay 3, has been performing work of great value for over 50 years, not only in | co-ordinating the work of the various State geological surveys, but in taking up such matters oi general scientific and economic importance ac the structure and origin pf the artesian water basins, the great: oil-fields, and the ore deposits of copper, iron, etc,, of North America.- --.■.-■

"It is obvious," declares .Sir Edgeworth David, "that from tho strategic standpoint, riot a day should be lost, in view of the colossal wiT preparations in thel Far East, in, constructing a line either from Oodnad-atta. to 'Pine Creek—the present southern terminus from Darwin—or from Clonourry, in Queensland, to 1 Darwin. Both lines should surely be constructed sooner or later. While this extreme strategic urgency exists, a Federal Parliamentary committee is inquiring into the condition for making a railway from Oodnadatta to Pine Creek. At the same time it is certainly the case that next to nothing, from the geological point of. view as regards the question of water supply and mineral resources, is known about the vast area winch, either of these lines would tra-verse, and the inquiry by' the Federal Parliamentary committee should certainly be supple; mented by a reliable geological report." t , It is practicaly certain that the Federal Government Bureau of Scionce and Industry will move in the matter.