MYSTERIOUS ISLAND.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 32, 17 November 1939, Page 2

MYSTERIOUS ISLAND.

OUTPOST OF THE TONGA GROUP. No island has ever given cartographers more trouble than Falcon Islet, the mysterious outpost of the Tonga group, in the South Pacific, which is to be visited by scientific expedition from Australia, writes “Lncio” in the “Manchester Guardian.” Away back in the middle of the eighteenth century a volcanic islet was first reported in the position now occupied by Falcon, but it was not until 1.865 that the outpost was mapped and given a name by the crew of H.M.S. Falcon. Twelve years later H.M.S. Sappho found that the islet had. vanished, leaving only a few black rocks in its last known position. In 1865, following a volcanic eruption of the seabed, Falcon reappeared and was tentatively replaced on the charts, but in 1898 it sank out of sight again, and when H.M.S. Porpoise examined the area in 1900 only a fe wfeet of rock was visible.

As recently as 1927, when many visitors were returning from the inauguration of Australia’s new capital, Canberra, the will-o’-the-wisp isle bobbed up once more and has apparently managed to remain on the surface ever since. But map-makers would show no great surprise if it staged another disappearance just before the scientific expedition is due to arrive!