ALADDIN'S CAVE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 425, 17 November 1930, Page 8

ALADDIN'S CAVE

CENTRAL AUSTRALIA A QUEST FOR GOLD The recent departure of two expeditions into Central Australia in search of gold was largely due to the peisistent belief among prospectors that somewhere in the heart of the country there exists an Aladdin's cave of gold closely guarded by aborigines. One party, leaving Sydney and travelling by way of Alice Springs, incluiles Captain BJakiston- Houston, aide-de-camp to the Governor-General. It has taken along with it an aeroplane to assist iu the survey work and if necessary to drop food supplies if the men get too far from their base. The other expedition, from Adelaide, is led by Michael Terry, explorer ana author, being financed by a group of some 50 leading citizens. Both parties recently reached their bases in the Alice Springs country about the same time.

The Terry expedition is prepared to remain for 12 months, being one of the best organised expeditions sent into the interior for many years.

Dr. Herbert Basedow, a central Australian authority, puts tho object of the quest at the south-west corner of the Northern Territory, between 250 and 300 miles from Alice Springs. Thirty years ago an explorer named Earle penetrated the wilds and brought back dazzling specimens in a bottlegreen quartz. Since then parties have endeavoured to trace the locality and have failed. Earle’s rough sketch of the country showed a cave where invisible wealth rivalling Aladdin’s was supposed to be hidden. The natives are said to know, but are unwilling to give the information.

The natives have travelled in from the far interior to the west coast of South Australia with fine specimens from the mysterious field, and men have gone after it, without success. It is said that since the country is subject to long periods of drought, sometimes extending over nine years, the natives think that expeditions visiting the locality with camel teams will use up the small resources of water and, consequently, are hostile when whites put in an appearance.

Dr. Basedow, however, has not found the natives so alarming as they have been painted.

The South Australian Government has already sent three expeditions to Central Australia in search of the deposits. Dr, Basedow, then deputy Government Geologist, accompanied one of them. They obtained some of the green-looking quartz, but there was no gold in it. When Dr. Basedow led the M‘Kay expedition in 1926 he met some natives of tho tribes inhabiting the elusive gold-bearing country, but they divulged nothing. Dr. Basedow is convinced of the prescnce of gold deposits. The country, he says, has striking auriferous tenden-