RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 232, 27 June 1932, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events LOCAL AND GENERAL (By Kickshaws.) Contortionists are said to be stfU prospering. But then if the rest of us could make ends meet so easily so would we be. A visitor to the south is of the opinion that few people realise when they devour a mutton-bird what the Natives have gone through to get it. Fewer still realise what their womenfolk have gone through to cook it , • • • In spite of ail the women now reported to be taking up the law as a profession, it must be remembered that there has never been any danger of running short of women who can lay it down. ♦ • • “A. McG.” has kindly forwarded the names of the authors of the two quotations asked for by “Ignoramus.” Here is the letter: —Your column gives us daily pleasure and profit. You ask for the authorship of two poetic quotations. The first is from Browning’s “Bishop Blougram’s Apology” and the second from Matthew Arnold’s poem “Obermann Once More.” With your interest in and information on so many subjects, can you kindly tell me what was the aerial ship which is referred to in one of Mrs. Carlyle’s letters? I have been realing “Letters and Memorials” recently, and in letter 8 to Miss Hunter(September 22, 1835), written from Cheyne Row, Mrs. Carlyle says she does not want to go to Scotland for country air, and declares: “I have no taste whatever for locomotion by earth, air, or sea (by the way, did you hear that the areial ship has been arrested for debt?”). Possibly Mrs. Carlyle was referring to the great Nassau balloon, which was on exhibit about this time to the people of London, where it made numerous ascents from Vauxbill Gardens. Not long after Mrs. Carlyle had penned her remarks on the subject this balloon made an experimental voyage with a crew of three. After, being 18 hours in the air it descended at Weilburg, in the Duchy of Nassau.

If it be true that an expedition has discovered pirate gold on Cocos Island its members can congratulate themselves on the fact that they have done something that so far has been done officially only once before. Fifty years ago a gentleman by the name of Keating made a treasure trip to Cocos. After a mutiny on his ship he and another man named Boque landed in a dinghy, found the treasure, and dodged the rest of the expedition. Keating was picked up at sea in a small boat. He explained that Boque had unfortunately fallen overboard. However true this story about Boque may have been, at any rate the two of them do seem to have found treasure. Gems were subsequently found in a coat belonging to Boque washed up on a beach. While Keating returned to Nova Scotia a wealthy man. After his death his wife went off to Cocos with an expedition to retrieve the rest of the treasure. He had placed a goldhilted sword where the treasure was burled as a sign post. Mrs. Keating found the sword and some stone crocks, but they were empty.

If we'are to believe rumour Cocos Island is simply stuffed with treasure. Somewhere within the 14 square miles of this island there is said to be 300 tons of gold and jewellery plundered by buccaneers from Spanish ships bringing wealth from Peru and Mexico for shipment across the isthmus of Panama. For some reason peculiar to pirates, when hard pressed by other members of their fraternity they rushed their treasure on principle to Cocos Island and buried it. No wonder that after a century or so of this lack of originality buried treasure stories should have become the chief export of this island. As if it were not enough to have pirates burrowing like rabbits all over the island in frantic haste to hide treasure a cargo of semi-oflicial treasure was dumped on the island when Bolivar threatened Lima in 1821. At first this treasure was hurriedly stowed on board the English ship Mary Dyer. Having “disposed” of his passengers, her captain, Thompson by name, rushed his booty to Cocos and buried it There it is said to be to this day, some £12,000,000 of it. <1 • ♦

No one but the divers themselves can possibly appreciate the difficulties that beset those who attempt to salvage gold from ships, such as the Egypt sunk beneath some 400 feet of water. Apart from the special technique required for work at these depths even the biggest liners - when carrying gold in bulk take every precaution to guard against it falling into the hands of “freebooters.” Nowadays the “freebooter” does not sail under the Jolly Roger; he does his work aboard. For that reason bullion is placed in the most inaccessible spot that can be found. Sometimes it is under the floor of the dining saloon. Passengers and stewards are constantly walking over the spot. Thieves have no chance of setting about their work unobserved. Naturally this makes the task of a diver especially difficult. He has not only to cut a hole in the ship, or to open a hatchway or two. but to cut away half a dozen steel bulkheads and other partitions before access can be obtained to the bullion. This problem, coupled with the tremendous tide race off Ushant, where the Egypt lies sunk, makes the task unique in the history of salvage work.

Mr. Phillips Turner struck a nail on the head when he stated in a recent lecture that the Anglo-Saxon has no good reason to be proud of his forests. Admittedly within the confines of the British Empire lie nearly 2,000,000 square miles of forests, but for the most part they were put there by nature and acquired by the Empire as a going concern. Just how fast they are going may be realised by the fact that it takes 25 acres of forest to supply sufficient paper for one edition of a newspaper with a large circulation. It cannot be said that Britain has exactly offered a standard of perfection in forestry upon which her colonies and Dominions might base their schemes.

In spite of much talk and in spite of the fact that the war destroyed 450.000 acres of woodland in Britain, it is only recently that anything has been done about the matter. Apart from the £10,000,0000 being spent in Britain in the next 10 years on improving her own forests, schemes are now being organised for a Unified Colonial Forests Service. In Britain alone it is estimated that the woodlands now being planted will be worth £560.000.000 :n 80 years, or roughly £100,000.000 more than the total cost It pays a country handsomely to look after its forest# properly.