ALADDIN'S CAVE

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 112, 8 November 1930, Page 25

ALADDIN'S CAVE

The recent departure of two expedi-1 tions into Central Australia in search of gold was largely due to the; persistent belief among prospectors that somewhere in the heart o£ ■ the; cbiin- ] try there exists an Aladdin's cave of gold closely guarded, by' aborigines. One party, leaving'^ Sydney" and travelling, by way of Alice Springs, includes Captain Blakiston-Houston, aide-do-camp to. tho Governor-General. It-has taken along with it an aeroplane to assist in the survey work, and ifnecessary to drop food supplies' if the] men get; too far from their base. -The other expedition,;from Adelaide, is' led by Michael Terry, explorer and author, being financed by, a group of some <50 leading citizens.^ Both parties recently, reached their bases in the Alice Springs country about, the. samo time. , ' ■'.' ' ' : / .The Terry;expedition: is prepared to remain for 12 months,, being .one of tho best 'organised expeditions i'sent into the interior for "many, years'. Dr. Herbert Basedow," a central Australian authority, puts tho object of the quest at the. south-west corner of the V:Northern Territory^ between 250 and 300 miles from Alice Springs. Thirty years; ago an explorer named Earle penetrated the wilds and brouglit back specimens in a bottlegreen quartz. Since then parties have, "endeavoured to trace the locality and have' failed.1 Earle's rough: sketch of

QUEST FOR GOLD IN AUSTRALIA

, the country showed a cave whoro invisible wealth rivalling Aladdin's was supposed to be hidden. The natives aro said to know, but are unwilling to give tho information. I The natives have travelled in from the far intorior to the west cO«st of South Australia with fine specimens from tho mysterious field, and men havo gono after it, without success. It is said that sineo the country is HUbjeet to long periods of drought, some--1 times extending over ftino years, tho [natives think that expeditions visiting the locality with camol teams will use up tho small resources' of water and, consequently, arc hostile when whites put in an appearance. Dr. Basedow, however, has. not found tho natives so alarming as they have been painted. The South Australian Government has already sent three expeditions to Central Australia in search of the deposits. Dr. Basedow, then deputy Government Geologist, accompanied one of them. They obtained some of the green-looking quarts, bnt there was no gold in it. "WEen Dr. Basedow led tho M'Kay expedition in 1926 he met sonic natives of the tribes inhabiting the elusive gold-beating country, but they divulged nothing.' Dr. Easedow is convinced of the presenco of gold deposits. The country, he says, "has striking auriferous tendencies.