GOING SOUTH

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 116, 19 May 1930, Page 10

GOING SOUTH

PLANS FOR DISCOVERY

1500 MILES SURVEY

(From "Tho Post's" Representative.) ' SYDNEY, Bth May.

General satisfaction greeted the announcement .of the leader (Sir Douglas Mawson) of tho Australian and Hew Zealand Antarctic Expedition that the necessary funds were in sight enabling him to go forward with hi- plans to continue tho work which has been so splendidly begun. He has stated that tho Discovery would leave Hobart, instead of Cape Town, probably early in November, and the majority of the staff which was taken on the recent trip to the south'would be available for the second part of tho expedition. "I would like to clear, up a wrong impression held by some- people that this second venture will:be a new venture," said Sir Douglas. "It is only a continuation of the programme that was originally prepared • and mado widely known, and which was to extend ovor two years. " '

Sir Douglas Mawson plans to make a scientific survey of another 1.500 miles of Antarctica. He/said that it Was., hopod to fill ;iu the gap. oil the charts of that area. Part* of the field came- within the acopo of the Australian expedition which ho led in 1911 and 1914, On tho next trip particular attention would bo paid to the fishing potentialities of tho seas visited.' He explained that he used the term fisheries in a wide sense. 'la addition to,tho commercial possibilities of taking edible fish in largo quantities, consideration would be given to the prospect of determining whether the area offered scope for whaling and the taking of seals.

Owing to the- state of Government finances in Australia, there was for a time some doubt whether, the expedition would be able to finish its task, Mr.' . Macphorson Bobertson, who stepped into the breach by. promising £6000 to help to defray the. cost of the next cruiso,' also contributed £.10,000 towards the outfitting of the expedition. He is a generous Australian, head of a, confectionery firm known as MaeEobertsous. Every year ho gives away thousands of. pounds to Victorian charities, and as a result of his support to 0 the Mawson' party his name will for ever be bound up with the history '.of Antarctica. Whatever measure of success tho expedition may achieve will Ijo due largely to his beneficence. -_