REMOTE PARTS OF AUSTRALIA

Otago Witness, Issue 3519, 23 August 1921, Page 25

REMOTE PARTS OF AUSTRALIA

(From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, August 10. Having just completed a hasty investigation of certain geological formations in remote parts of Central Australia, Professor Sir Edgeworth David, of Antarctic fame, has returned to Sydney deeply impressed with the vast artesian water, mineral, and pos- : sibly oil resources that merely await development. Incidentally the party which he led came across evidences of glacial action near Yellow Greek —now a most torrid locality which he declares that the word stupendous is insufficient to describe, and which will constitute that locality a happy hunting ground for 'geologists for all time. Nothing so remarkable of this nature, he says, were found by him or his colleague Sir Douglas Maws® m tlie Antarctic. But it is in regard to the resources above referred to that Sir ] Edgeworth is most emphatic, and he is movI ing the Australasian Science Association to j negotiate with the Federal Government to undertake immediately a comprehensive geological survey along all th© possible routes of the projected north-south railway which : will traverse the entire continent. A Federal committee is new taking evidence of settlers I regarding this great project. To emphasise the value of possibilities of such a survey Sir Edgeworth David cites the Federal geoi logical survey of America, which, lie says, I has been performing work of great value for ; over 50 years not only in co-ordinating the i work of the various State geological sur- | vevs. but in taking up such matters of geneI ral scientific and economic importance as the structure an.l origin of iho artesian water basins, the great oilfields, and the ore deposits of copper, iron, etc., of North America. “It is obvious,” declares Sir Edgeworth David, “that from the strategic standpoint, not a day should be lost, in view of tho colossal war preparations in the Far East, in constructing a line cither from Oodnadatta to Pino Creek —the present southern terminus from Darwin—or from Cloncurry, in Queensland, to Darwin. Both lines should suiuly he constructed sooner or Inter. While this extreme strategic urgency exists, a 'Federal parliamentary committee is inquiring into the condition for making n railway in in Oodnadatta to Pine Creek. At the same t in© it, is certainly the case that next to nothing, I from the geological point of view as regards 1 the question of water supply and mineral reI sources, is known about the vast aiea which oil her of these lines would 1 ravers®, and the inquiry by the Federal pari, aimntary committee' should certainly he supplemented by a, reliable geological report.” i It is practically certain that the Federal I Government Bureau of Science and Indusi try will move in tho matter.