QUEST FOR GOLD

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 February 1927, Page 2

QUEST FOR GOLD

USE FOR GRAMOPHONE In order to overcome the hostility of savage tribes, Captain Stower, the guide of a New Guinea gold expedition, is taking a gramophone with him, and a number of reproducing records, and with these he intends to induce friendly native chiefs to speak and to commend the expedition to their wild brethren in the interior. Backed by £150,000 of Adelaide money, the expedition left Sydney by the Melusia on February 1, for Salomon on behalf of the new goldmining company for New Guinea. The leader of the party is Edgar B. Jensen, of Adelaide, and the guide, Captain H. L. Stower, ex-naval man and wanderer,, who has lived 18 years round the Archipelago and New Guinea, where he owns property. Tragedy having laid low so many white men’s hopes in the Bulolo goldlands, this newest expedition is expected by South Australians to tap new and splendid sources of reef and alluvial gold. As the expedition works into the wilder regions Stower will run off a record or two, telling the new tribe

what a very “fine fellow” he is; and under the pleasant surprise of the strange introduction the expedition will give beads all round, and press on. Having met some of the Bulolo whites stranded on the track to the Bulolo fields recently, he says they courted disaster by being entirely out of sympathy with the native intelligence. It is hoped to transport provisions from Rabaul by aeroplane.