This time the parties moving have got the ear of the Minister and have made some progress in their demands. It is a perfectly legitimate matter for any commercial syndicate to seek to obtain cheap power.
The central and western regions of Otago and Southland abound with available water supplies but let us keep the hands of the commercialist off the Bowen Falls. Sir, there is only one Milford Sound in the world, and the Bowen Falls constitute one of its most attractive features. Those who take "the most beautiful walk in the world", so much advertised by the Tourist Department, find this lovely object at the end of their tramp. Do you not think their whole aesthetic sense will be shocked to find on arrival in this most beautiful sound a power-house, manufacturing works, and a collection of cottages? Once you settle a working population there, the process of bush destruction immediately commences.
I hope the people of Otago and Southland will rise in their wrath against this desecration of an area which should be kept sacrosanct for all time. I am delighted to see that the Southland League has already taken action, and I trust that the Otago League will immediately join hands with it in endeavouring to arrest this project. I shall do all in my power to stir up public feeling against any filching of our valued scenic reserves. We want, in this young country, to cultivate the aesthetic sense of the community; the commercial spirit can take care of itself. Commercialism has its place, but that place is certainly not in the Milford Sound.
— I am, etc, Geo. M. Thomson
Violation of virgin beauty
The operations of the syndicate which has applied for a license to apply the Falls to industrial purposes would not, we take it, be destructive of the splendour of the spectacle provided by the Falls themselves, but the environment would unquestionably suffer in precisely the same way as has happened at Niagara Falls, around which, on the American side, are clustered great buildings expressive of the commercialisation of one of the scenic wonders of the world. And to the violation of the virgin beauty of the country that fringes Milford Sound is to be added the danger, which Mr G.M. Thomson mentions in a letter this morning, of the destruction of the native bush. The utility of the plans of the syndicate being granted, are there not many other waterfalls that may be harnessed for the purpose as effectively, even if not as cheaply, as the Bowen Falls?
— editorial
Fish indicate once-linked water
Reports that "small crabs, fish, and shellfish" have been found in water from artesian wells in the lower Sahara Desert are interesting to scientists.
"The existence of fish and other forms of life in the subterranean waters of the Sahara, as well as in other parts of the world, has long been a recognised fact," says Dr E.W. Gudyer, of the American Museum of Natural History.
"The species found in these wells, at a depth of from 200ft to 300ft below the surface of the ground, are identical with those found in the surface streams and ponds. Nor is that all.
"Some of these species of fish, apparently living far underground, are exactly the same as those still found in the waters of the Congo, the Niger, the Senegal, the Nile and the Jordan, and in Lake Tchad and Lake Tanganyika.
"Some of these are forms common to the whole of Northern Africa and Palestine."
— ODT, 18.2.1925 (Compiled by Peter Dowden)
