PAPUAN GOLD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22563, 6 May 1935, Page 27

PAPUAN GOLD

RECONNAISSANCE FROM PLANE MAPPING UNEXPLORED TERRITORY (Feom Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, April 23. Papuan gold! The very words have a romantic ring about them, a glamour reminiscent of a Beatrice Grimshaw novel. But there is' more than romance and glamour behind them, and hardheaded business men and experienced prospectors expect Papua soon to rival New Guinea as a supplier of gold. The metal has been won for many years in this "colony" of Australia's, but the payable fields have never warranted the intensive development which has taken place at Edie Creek, Morobe, Bulolo, and other centres in the neighbouring Mandated Territory. But recent exploration and prospecting in the lesser known parts of the Papuan hinterland have led to great expectations. English capital has become interested in Papuan gold development, and early in June a large-scale aerial reconnaissance of Central Papua will be made on behalf of the Oroville Dredging Company, Ltd., a London company. At present a party, including a police officer and four native policemen, are establishing a base at d'Albertis Junction, 600 river miles up the Fly River. From this base a Short Scion amphibian plane, which is now on its way to Sydney, will be flown over the unexplored mountain country that lies' to the east of the border of Dutch New Guinea. Where promising country is detected from the air, ground parties will be landed either on the lakes near the Fly River or, where this is impracticable, on landing grounds which will be prepared. This will be the first systematic gold reconnaissance that "has been carried out in Papua, and the area which will be surveyed is almost unexplored. Practically the only knowledge of it is that brought back a few years ago by Messrs Karius and Champion, who voyaged up the Fly River and across the central ranges to the Sepik River, in the mandated territory of New Guinea. The plan of the expedition was outlined by Mr Stuart Campbell, a former officer of ' the Royal Australian Air Force, who will be pilot during the reconnaissance. Mr Campbell took part in Barrier Reef survey work, and is well-known in New Zealand as chief pilot of Sir Douglas Mawson's two Antarctic expeditions in 1930 and 1931. For the last two months he has been carrying out a v geological survey on the Bulolo goldfield in New Guinea on behalf of the firm of H. Hemming and partners, aerial surveyors, of London. The reconnaissance, he said, would be supported by a motor launch on the Fly River, which was uninhabited by whites except at the mouth and at a small mission not far from the mouth. Flights would be made over the hundreds of valleys that run out from the ranges forming the backbone of Papua witii the object of eliminating the limestone areas and noting and examining the promising soft slate areas, which would then be prospected by land parties operating either from the several large lakes or from land bases. Some of these lakes—Lake Herbert Hoover, for example, which was named by an Americaan expedition seeking disease-resisting sugar cane along the Fly River a few years ago—were as much as 10 miles in diameter.

The vegetation, the nature of the erosion and mineral outcrops visible from the air, made it possible for an aerial observer to make a rapid assessment of areas that'would take years to explore by land parties. Apart from the search for gold, it was intended to do as much mapping as possible of this practically unmapped country. The Oroville Company's concessions covered about 350 miles by 100 miles, and it was expected that the expedition would be at work until the end of the year Last year, in Western Australia, Wing-commander F. C. V. Laws, formerly chief of the photographic section of' the Royal Air Force, with Mr Campbell as his assistant, made a map of about 8000 square miles of country, including all the geological outcrops in most of the known goldfields in that State. The work was done to the order of the Western Mining Corporation, of London.