ARID AUSTRALIA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19202, 19 June 1924, Page 8

ARID AUSTRALIA.

PLENTY OF GOOD GO ENTRY UNTO UOli ED. (Faon Ouk Own Courespondunt.) SYDNEY, Juno 12. There are many Australians who regard as a reflection on this country any suggestion that there is in Australia any really desert wastes, ’through Iho portholes of (he press in Sydney Profes,.or Griflith Taylor, of the Sydney University, and others have been hurling words at one another on this point until finally the professor, as if to clinch the argument, has adopted the unusual course of accompanying his latest letter to the papers with a map showing the settlement of Australia, and the map has boon reproduced. He uses the map to illustrate his two main points. First, that an area which, he says, is nearly half the continent, is inhabited, after a century of settlement, by about one half of one per cent, of the population; secondly, that the big region shown on his tell-tale map by dots or wavy lines is capable of only very sparse pastoral occupation, and is of exactly the same origin as the Sahara. The professor says lie cannot understand the mental process by which some people conclude that there is no desert in Central Australia. His argument is that w e can well leave the desert to the future, seeing that there is plenty of good country yet untouched in Australia.