VANISHING NUGGET

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 294, 25 September 1935, Page 7

VANISHING NUGGET

AN AFRICAN MYSTERY. Somewhere in the world to-day is a monster gold nugget which keeps on vanishing in most mysterious circumstances. Mr E.W. Jakins, a former digger in Tanganyika Territory, is the finder of this remarkable chunk of gold around which native Africa has woven tales of the occult. Now in London, he described his find and the mystery of the nugget’s disappearance, says the “London People.” When it first came into his possession it weighed 930 z. and was worth about £7OO.

“It was a record size nugget for that part of the country,” Mr Jakins said, “and, foolishly perhaps, I did riot send it at once to the bank. I locked it in a table drawer, where I kept some othergold worth about £6OO and' £l5O in cash. When next I opened the drawer the nugget had gone, but the other gold and money had not been touched. “If it was theft, there was only one man in the whole district who could have committed it, for he had the run of my place. But wo searched his house in vain. We searched so thoroughly that by the time we had finished the house was only good for burning—and lie burnt it down that very night, then vanished 1 .

“Some time afterwards the nugget was found in what had been his fowlhouse, but a chunk had been chipped off, reducing its weight to about 80oz. I kept .the discovery absolutely secret and sent the nugget off with a smaller parcel of gold to my; bank at Dar-es-Salaam. “A few days later I received acknowledgment of the smaller parcel, but no word of the nugget. It hadn’t arrived, I found on inquiry, and it hasn’t arrived to this day. It was posted secretly and registered along with the other parcel. “And what has happened to it is as much a mystery to me as it is to the natives, who seem to believe that it possesses a hoodoo.”