SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

Waikato Times, Volume 114, Issue 19012, 1 August 1933, Page 8

SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

THE ABORIGINES. INTERESTING RESEAROH WORK. (Empire Press Union.) ADELAIDE, July 18. Every year sees fresh advances in anthropological work in South Australia, and gradually a comprehensive body of knowledge Is being accumulated relating to the Australian aborigine, who, because of his low degree of cultural attainment, belongs to one of the most interesting races of the world from the anthropological point of view. For several years expeditions from the University of Adelaide and the South Australian Museum, aided by grants from a Rockefeller Foundation, have visited the interior, where the natives can be studied in their natural habitat, and spent several weeks in research work. Plans are being made for this year’s party, which will be led by the Director of the Museum (Mr Hale). It will include doctor's, mental specialists, physiologists, zoologists and ethnologists, and will make its headquarters in the Musgrave Ranges, several hundred miles west of Oodnadatta, and close to the border of Western Australia and South Australia. Several weeks ago Dr. C. Haclcett, anthropometrist, and Mr N. B. Tindale, B.Sc., tchnologist at the Museum, left for the interior to establish a base camp, and to carry out preliminary work before the arrival cfT the main party, which will travel by rail as far as Oodnadatta, and thence by motor lorry.

South Australian Professor.

Next year South Australia will lose one of the most brilliant members of the professorial staff at the Adelaide University, for Professor W. K. Hancock, who has occupied the chair in modern history for the last six years, has accepted an appointment at Birmingham University. Still in his early thirties, Professor Hanoook has already made his mark abroad, aqd his critical analysis of Australia and Australians in his recently published book, “Australia," is said to have been one of the steps leading to his Birmingham appointment. A Rhodes scholar from Victoria, a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and the youngest professor in the British Empire at the time of his appointment to the Adelaide University, Professor Hancock seems destined for a career unusually rich in achievement. His passing to other spheres of work recalls other noteworthy figures who have been associated with South Australia either by birth or long residence. Among them are Sir William Bragg, and his son, Professor Bragg, winners of the Nobel Prize for their work in crystals and X-rays; Sir Douglas Maws on; Sir Hubert Wilkins; Sir Horace Lamb, one of the Empire’s most famous engineers, and Mr Alan Rowe, celebrated archaeologist. ,

Workless Man’s Good Fortune. Fortune has smiled on an Adelaide unemployed man in the last fortnight. Digging a hole to plant a tree near the Mt. Crawford camp for unemployed men in the Mt. Lofty Ranges, he unearthed a nugget of quartz and gold worth £6O. A few days later, when prospecting near the same spot he uncovered another worth £IOO. A large area near by has been pegged, and; while there Is nothing to justify a rush, others hope to follow in the footsteps of the lucky finder. Similar rloh pockets have been found on several occasions in the Mt. Lofty Ranges, but, tantalisingly, they have proved to be of small extent.