PHOSPHATES AT NAURU.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 258, 29 October 1921, Page 12

PHOSPHATES AT NAURU.

! PRIMITIVE LOADING METHODS ! QUICK DISPATCH TO STEAMERS. '' The coral formation of the island ot ; Nauru makes it impossible for steamers t to approach close lo the shore, and con- , seqiienttly loading operations from the phosphates works 011 tin- island arc still carried on by somewhat primitive . methods. Piers have not been constructed, and steamers going there to load anchor at a distance of about aquarter of a mile from the shore in 300 fathoms of water. Two buoys, about half a-mile apart, mark the "loading berths," where the steamers anchor. Inside these buoys the water is quite ■ shallow, and the coral rocks fall away [ precipitously... A. fleet .of lighters brings ■ the phosphates from the shore to the ' steamers, and during loading operations • there is a constant stream of them pas--1 sing from the shore to the ship and as 1 many more sailing back to the shore to [ re-load. Consequently 110 delay is oe- [ caoioncd. The Kaiwarra, which arrived , here from Nauru Island on Thursday, , loaded her cargo of 4;!f>o ions in four days, averaging more than 1000 tons a day. At the time the Kaiwarra was at the island there was another steamer, the Eurillisi, of the Commonwealth Line, loading phosphates for Wallaroo, and the Bulga was expected to arrive a few days after the departure of the Kaiwarra, to load for the same company. On the island are about, one hundred white men who are engaged in working the phosphates, and they are assisted by many blacks. From the sea the island has a typically tropical appearance with its belt of palms down to the water's edge.