It is too soon yet to say that Australia will be the locals of an oil boom, but there is everything pointing that way. New Guinea and Papu are known to give natural oil seepages, and experts are busy exploring and mapping out the oil-bearing country. A few hundreds of gallons have been obtained, but the resources have not yet been tested commercially. In Australia _proper the newspapers almost daily hint at some good prospect, said to have been marked down.
At the moment the most interesting development is at Roma, a town several hundred miles inland in southern Queensland. It in located in the recognized area of artesian water, and for some years drew its supplies from an overflowing bore. It was proposed to deepen the bore in question, when a reservoir of natural gas struck, and from this the town drew its lighting. Other bores in this part of Australia have also yielded inflammable gas. A few years ago the gas bore at Roma took fire and for weeks column of flames, visible an immense distance, burned. Eventually it was put out by dropping that was in reality an enormous enuffer over the outlet.
Tests of this gas have lately proved that it contains petrol, and hopes are raised that by further sinking oil will be struck. The fact that there are _artedian basins aggregating about 750,000 square miles, and that these gases have been struck in the principal basin of nearly 600,000 square miles, opens up oil prospects which almost stagger the ima, nation. There are also wide oil shale deposits in nearly every State of the Commonwealth. In 1918-19 three million gallons of crude shale oil were recovered, and there has been a. steadily increasing production since.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.