UNRELIABLE ISLANDS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 108, 3 November 1937, Page 11

UNRELIABLE ISLANDS

People who buy islands in some quarters of the globe have odd experiences, says the "Manchester Guardian." It seems that about fifty years ago a three^acreisland in the Danube was sold by its owners to a Hungarian church community for a trifling sum. Since that time the island has been steadily growing until it is now some nineteen acres in extent, and its former owners are claiming in the courts that they are entitled to a further sum in respect of the accretion. The present owners, of course, are not having any; they took the island, so to speak, for better for worse—and in the Danube islands usually diminish. Another island that cannot make up its mind even whether it Is to exist or not is Falcon Island, in the Western Pacific. It was first discovered as a reef in 1885. In 1877 smoke was seen issuing from the sea, and in 1885 it made its bow as an island. Two years later it was over a mile long, a mile wide, and 153 feet high. In another two years it was three miles long and' one and a half .miles wide and fifty feet high. In 1898 it disappeared, but bobbed up again in 1900, 'Its next vanishing trick took place in 1903, and in 1923 it was .observed to be in eruption again, seven days later appearing as a small island 1730 yards by 1430 yards arid' 305 feet high, A month later a ship passed, that way and could'see nothing of it.