An Active Volcano in Australia.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 896, 3 May 1889, Page 9

An Active Volcano in Australia.

The report recently brought to Adelaide by a mounted trooper from the district near the Macdonell lianges, to the effect that the natives told him of the existence of an active volcano some distance beyond Alioe Springs, has been to some extent confirmed by the well known Australian explorer, David Liudsay, who has just returned to Adelaide from a trip to the back country. The trooper, Willshire, who reported the matter in the first instance, saw a volume of black smoke curling away across the plains when he was making into Alice Springs from one of the outlying stations, and he at once questioned the natives in regard to it. From them ho learned of the existence of the volcano. Mr Lindsay did not happen to seo the smoke himself when he passed through the territory more recently,, but all the natives he met confirmed the reports previously givon by the trooper Willshire. The subject is naturally provoking considerable discussion and speculation in the colonies, as scientific people had long ago arrived at the conclusion that Australia was altogether ‘ too old ’ to possess such a thing as an active volcano. In connection with the reported discovery, it may be mentioned that the blaokfellows from the Upper Murchison to the Fitzroy riveis in Western Australia beiieve in the existence of an active crater inland. On the Fitzroy it is known as Walkarong. This is a compound word, made up of the aboriginal terms for the sun in two different dialects, and the missionaries have hitherto looked upon the expiession as merely mythical, and in some way connected with the old religious belief and superstition of the aborigines in these regions—their spiritual inclination having tended somewhat in the direction of sun worship. As far as can be ascertained, the mount lies about 200 miles in a north-westerly direction from Alice Springs, with a bearing from the latter place towards the coast, at a point, roughly speaking, about midway betwpou the Fitzroy and the Murchison. The natives informed Mr Lindsay that ‘a large hole is always burning, and that it growls and throws up sand and Btones.’ They appeared afraid to talk much about the place, asserting that it was ‘no good ; blackfellow did not make it.’ As a kind of corroboration of this curious report, it is worthy of mention that Mr T. R. O’Grady, another explorer, heard a good deal of this volcano when he visited the head waters of the Lyons River some half-dozen years since. He reported at the time that there was a strange sound sometimes heard in the dry, solitary parts of the north-west interior. It was’ known as the ‘ desert sound’ in those regions, and was like a dull, distant explosion. It had always been a subject of considerable speculation among bushmen as to what produced it, the genoral supposition being that it proceeded from the rending of masses of granite rock by unequal expansion from the great solar heat. O’Grady believed In this theory until the explosion in the straits of Sunda, when the Island of Krakatoa was destroyed. At that time he was engaged in exploring the head waters of the Lyons River,, and heard the ‘ desert

sound ’ louder, sharper, aud more continuous than ho bad ever noticed it before. The country is a terrible desert out in the direction of where the mountain is supposed to lie, and the spot is thus to some extent unapproachable by ‘single-handed’ travellers who pass near. Whao should be done—and in all probability will be done—is to equip a small expedition purposely for the examination of the place. There are numbers of scientific men in Australia who would be glad to take part in such an enterprise, and with a little assistance from Government an expedition to the interior might produce some interesting and valuable results.