Cloud Again Defeats

Fiji’S Aerial Mappers

TWO different companies, under charter to the Fiji Government in two different years, have, due to persistent cloud cover over certain parts of the Islands, failed to complete the aerial survey of Viti Levu and other areas of Fiji.

Of the 3,772 square miles over which Adastra Airways of Brisbane hoped to complete a survey last year, only 1,506 square miles were possible.

It is expected that further ten ders will be called again this year, as failure to complete the work is holding up geological and soil sur vey of Viti Levu which can, in theory, be enormously aided and speeded up by the use of aerial photographs rather than by the slow and difficult ground survey of the mountainous areas.

An English firm, in 1951, also failed to complete a survey of the area. The survey planes fly at a great height, and in order to get their photographs, it must not only be fine weather, but absolutely cloudless below. This, in Fiji, is very difficult to achieve, even in the driest dry season.

U Mr. F. W. Bond, of Fiji Builders Ltd., Suva, is on vacation in the United Kingdom.