VAST RICHES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 189, 12 August 1931, Page 7

VAST RICHES

AUSTRALIA’S UNKNOWN. SYDNEY, July 29. What part in the future prosperity of the Commonwealth will Central Australia play through her mineral resources'/ Australia is already worldfamous for the extent of its valuable minerals, but there are some scientists who claim that tao surface has been merely scratched, as it were. There are vast areas of the continent as yet unexplored and unknown, and their riches can only be gUesscd at. Mr. T. Hodge Smith, mineralogist to the Australian Museum, has just returned from a tour of the interior, and he is very enthusiastic about the outlook. The time will come, he says, when there will be a great ‘find’ that will startle the world, and not only Australia. “Although Central Australia appears to be only a use.ess waste," he said the other day, “I think it will, through its mineral resources, be of great value to the Commonwealth when it is properly developed.’’ He points out that pre-Cambrian rocks (which are approximately 800,000,000 years old) have been found in Queensland, Western lific mineral bearers. Buch rocks were a prominent feature of the Central Australian landscape. It was no matter for surprise, therefore, that gold, silver, lead, copper, and mica (the latter so valuable as an electrical insulator) occurred more or less abundantly in the unsettled interior. “The occurrence of mica in Central Australia," says Mr. Smith, “is simiar to that of India, which has been in the past the chief producer of this mineral. Scattered about tho ancient gneises and schists are thousands of quartz dykes, all of which carry mica of commercial size and quality. The mica occurs in crystals (or ‘books’ as the miners term them) up to as mweh as three feet in diameter. More often, however, it occurs in ‘books’ roughly six inches by six inches." Mr Smith goes on to point out that gold has not been found in payable quantities in Central Australia, but its presence there is beyond doubt. What more was needed to prove that point than the fact that the aborigines of the Arltunga district, north-east of Alice Springs, frequently brought in small nuggets to the settlements, and traded them for sticks of tobacco? Obviously, where gold could be found in that fashion, on the surface, there was much more remaining to bo won. But it appeared to be equally obvious that the winning of gold there would always be difficult owing to the lack of water. Although silver-lead and copper were also known to occur in that region, Mr Smith was not able to speak definitely from personal knowledge of the commercial possibilities. He has no doubt, however, as to the commercial value of the garnet occurring there. That mineral was present in enormous quantities. Most of it was adaptable for use as an abrasive, and a considerable quantity was of gem qua’ity, this being of a beautiful rubyred colour. Another mineral occurring frequently was wolfram, an a’loy of steel.