“NOTHING UNLUCKY IN OPALS”

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 217, 11 June 1935, Page 10

“NOTHING UNLUCKY IN OPALS”

Prosper Ralston Proves It

MAKING WORLD’S MOST BEAUTIFUL HARP

There is one man in the world for whom opals are not unlucky. Standing on the deck of the Makura yesterday when she arrived at Wellington from Sydney, he pulled from his pocket a cigarette tin and displayed a glittering collection, the value of which he placed at £3OOO. To get them lie had made a tour round the opal fields of Central Australia by aeroplane. “There's nothing unlucky about opals,” he told “The Dominion.” “To get these we did just about everything that one shouldn’t do in a plane. We flew through sand storms, made forced landings, and I think we have shown that opals are definitely lucky.” The speaker was Prosper Ralston, a Canadian American,' widely known as “The man with the harp.” He went to Australia prepared to spend £19.000 on opals. He was greatly disappointed because he could spend only £3OOO. He combed the opal mines of Australia, and because he couldn't get sufficient be ended up by buying a mine, and will go back and mine the remainder.

Although known as “The man with the harp,” Mr. Ralston was literally a man with three harps when he arrived at Wellington yesterday. Two he had stowed in bis cabin and the third on deck.

Opals have a close connection with harps for Prosper Ralston, for he intends to build a harp the of which will be inlaid with them. A Wellington tradesman is to do the job. And if anyone asks why he wants a harp with an opal inlaid frame, the answer is that he thinks such a n instrument will be a "ood device to attract the public to his lectures ou behaviourism, behaviourism being a psychology which has had an enormous vogue, particularly in America, in recent years. Its chief exponent is Professor John B. Watson, mechanist and extreme environmentalist in psychology and philosophy.

Prosper Ralston flew 3500 miles by air in Australia, accompanied by a Sydney “Sun” reporter in his quest. He hopes in time to have the finest opal collection in the world. He has made a good start already. He has been ih New Zealand before, and will be a month here on this occasion before returning to his opal mine at Lightning Ridge. Mr. Ralston is convinced there is a big future ahead of the greenstone industry in New Zealand. He has plans for popularising beads made from one form of greenstone, a transparent variety, which is difficult to get. He is convinced there is a large potential vogue for greenstone beads in Europe. He is also ’nterested in New Zealand paua shells. Before the wanderlust seized him he was a member of the Chicago Grand Opera Orchestra.