NORTHERN AUSTRALIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 June 1925, Page 5

NORTHERN AUSTRALIA.

UNRAVELLING ITS SECRETS. EXPEDITION FROM BRITAIN. A British expedition which promises to be of far-reaching importance left England for Australia on April 30. It is led by Mr. Michael Terry, and has been organised with the olbject of disproving the popular belief that Northern Australia is nothing but a waste of sandy desert. Some years ago Mr. Terry was in Northern Australia, where he discovred among other things that the country is anything but the arid waste of the geography b oks and the maps, and that not only is it not a white man’s grave but, comparatively speaking, it is thoroughly suitable for Europeans., Then he met an old prospector who had been out in the great desert, which was reputed to yield nothing but sand, and learned from him of the unmistakable signs of gold ami oil. Mr. Terry’s expedition is the result.

Mr. Terry told of his plans and hopes after a farewell luncheon given to him on the evening before his departure from England. It was, he said, a propaganda thern Australia really is. Practically speaking, it is uninhabited and undeveloped, and here he would utter a word, of warning, “ilf we continue to play the part of the dog in the manger,” he said, “some other country not far distant from Australia will step in and plumb its resources, gaining its ends cither by warfare or arbitration. And they will not be so slow as we have been in discovering the vast possibilities of the country.”

It was a country emnently suitable for white men, said Mr. Terry, and he hoped to be aible to prove that the height above sea level varied from 700 to well over 1000 ft. Isolation and misconception were the two main enemiesof Northern Australian development' and he had every hope of removing the latter by means of cinematograph pictures. The expedition consists of six men, including an English M.P., and Mr. Terry hopes to be back in England toward the end of the year.

Apart from the possibilities of gold and oil, the geopraphical data which it is hoped will be secured will be of the greatest value. Up to the present the country has been distinctly on the black list from the emigration 'point of view but should Mr. Terry bring his adventure to a successful conclusion—and if enthusiasm can effect this he certainly will - there will be opened up a great tract of land which will gave to the hitherto despised North the well-deserved popularity of the South.

The expedition, which is entirely British. will be mechanical throughout, and will, be transported by means of two specially constructed Guy roadless motors with trailers, and a motor-cycle and side-car for reconnoitring purposes. The country covered will stretch roughly from Port Darwin to Perth, a distance of 3000 miles, 500 miles of which will be across unknown territory Tn 1872 part of this tract was crossed by camel, but no data exists as to the result of this expedition.