26 Sunday Jan. 18: To Southport to see my brother Alan. A 60-mile train journey taking about 1 hr. 40 minutes. As usual the passengers opened all the windows and let in great quan- tities of cinders from the coal-burning locomotive. Southport is on a stretch of South Queensland coast which promoters have visions of making into an Australian Florida. It is in about the same latitude south that Florida's Palm Beach is north, although the climate, being continental, is perhaps colder. A sand dune coast with fine surfing beaches popular with Brisbane people in the summer months. The present town development occupies only a fraction of the good high building land behind the beaches. There are no smelly mangrove flats. Many fine pleasure launches in the estuary of the Nerang River, which enters the sea here. One modern hotel - Surfer's Paradise Hotel. Petrol rationing is hitting seaside resorts hard. Few cars about. Southport and that stretch of coast has been in the news lately as a source of critical rare minerals. For several years past there has been small scale recovery from the beach sands of Zircon (used for hardening steel, making highly heat re- sistant vitreous enamels, etc.), rutile (used for hardening steel, making colored tiles, and as a base for chemical smoke for war purposes) and small quantities of radio-active thorium. Monday Jan. 19: First call of day was to U. S. Consul Peck, who will arrange for me to see the Premier, Mr. Hanlon, during the week. Call at Bank New South Wales, where I met the manager, Mr. Pickering, and later arranged with the travel agent of the Bank for my journey north to Cairns. Not able to get a train reservation (trains crowded and reservations must be made two weeks in advance) so decided to go by air and got the last available seat on the ANA (Australian National Lines) plane leaving Brisbane 2 PM Monday 266h. Fare L.13/13/9 and they allow only 35 lbs free baggage. Called at Sub-Department of Forestry, Dept. of Public Lands, re permit to col- lect on forest reserves. V. Grenning, the Director, away on annual leave. Saw A. R. Trist, Deputy Director, his brother C. J. Trist, Secretary, and Mr. Dawson, in charge of northern forests. Long talk from which I got some good infor- mation from Dawson on rain-forests between Daintree River and Cooktown (No timber now being cut in Shipton's Flat area, but some of the many timber roads in rain- forest go up to about 2500 ft. on slopes of Mt. Finnegan. Timber now being cut in rainforests of Mt. Boolbun North and hauled by tractors to a sawmill on the lower Bloomfield. A road trafficable for lorries goes south from Cooktown to Mt. Poverty tin workings; plenty of packers (pack horses) available to transport gear from Mt. Poverty to Mt. Boolbun North. A Danish couple named Olafson run a boarding house on the lower Bloomfield. A small launch from the Bloomfield meets the big launch that runs regularly between Cooktown and Cairns. Eyres, now Forest Overseer at Mareeba, was stationed several years in Cooktown area and is thoroughly familiar with country south of there). A. R. Trist a bluff, open air type, much influenced by his brother, C. J., who is very much of the stuffy civil service type of senior office official. C. J. handled the matter of permits. No trouble about permit to collect anything from "State Forests, Timber Reserves and Crown lands in North Queensland." National Parks were another matter. Could not get permission to collect zoological materi- als in these. C. J. began by telling me the flora of the National Parks (including the 80,000 acre Mt. Bartel Frere Park) was well known and that White could tell us all about it. Was able to convince him that this is not so, and was given permis- sion to collect botanical specimens "provided that the removal of such specimens will not appreciably affect the survival of the species in the locality concerned."