Abstract
AN aerial survey over that part of Papua recently explored by Mr. Jack Hides, an assistant resident magistrate (see NATURE, Aug. 17, p. 251, Aug. 24, p. 290, 1935), by clearing up obscure points in the previous record, once more has illustrated the advantages of this aid to exploration in difficult country. Its assistance in giving speed and enlarging the range of vision was strikingly and conclusively demonstrated a few years ago by the aerial reconnaissance made by Dr. S. P. Morley of the Carnegie Institution, Washington, D.C., over the forest country of Central America, when in the course of a few hours flying, a large number of previously unknown ruins and archaeological sites were located in forest areas of Yucatan and Honduras, which it would have been possible to reach only after weeks or even months of travel, if at all, by the ordinary means of transport. In Papua, the country covered by Mr. Hides in eight months was traversed in flights lasting only two days, while the limestone plateau on the approach to the Leonard Murray Mountains, the “cruel tract” of needle points and razor edges, which cost him eleven days arduous and painful travel, was crossed in fifteen minutes. No less significant was the accuracy with which it was possible to observe and distinguish the tracts and types of country described in the record of the original exploration. The account of the survey given by Mr. Lewis Lett (The Times, April 25) fully bears out Mr. Hides' description of the country as “a wonderland”. In its isolation, it should prove the happy hunting ground of the future for the indomitable anthropologist.
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Exploration by Aeroplane. Nature 137, 733–734 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137733c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137733c0