FLOATING ISLANDS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 22 August 1924, Page 10

FLOATING ISLANDS.

MONKEY-LADEN AND ADRIFT IN THE PACIFIC. , Borneo, the .mysterious island-contin-ent lying between Southern’ Asia ’ and Australia, and, according t,i> the late P. T. Barnum, the originaT habitat of the famous “Wild Man,’’ lias produced another marvel, a real one, fourteen of them, in fact. Floating islands! Recent telegraphic advices from the Far East, reporting the existence of the nomadic isles, wandering about in the Oriental Pacific, bearing lofty cocoanut paim trees and the palm trees carrying hordes of chattering monkeys, were received with some scepticism in scientific circles, and less cultured commentators voiced an opinion that the glasses the islands were seen through were gin tumblers. But substance to the reports was provided recently, says the San Francisco Chronicle, with the arrival of the globe-circling liner President Adams, bringing photographs of the floating islands and the solemn testimony of their existence from Captain Jonas Pendlebury and scores of passengers and members of the crew. “They were there, and they floated, and they had coconut trees and monkeys in the trees were harvesting the nuts for a hard winter,’’ declared pretty Miss Margetta De Meglio, one of the many tourists who saw the islands. “The monkeys were throwing the cocoanuts to the ground, but as the •ship stood off some distance we were in no danger of a bombardment. We counted fourteen islands, all in one group, ranging in size, according to the captain, who made a careful observation of them, from seven acres down. There were several of three or four acres. The largest one had a hill on it, as shown by the photographs.” This is the explanation of the floating islands as set forth by scientists, who say that similar phenomena have been reported by deep-sea skippers of many years ago. Currents in the great rivers of Western Asia undercut and separate from shore huge slices of tropical jungle, the heavy, far-reach-ing roots of the trees and dense vegetation binding the “islands” together and holding considerable quantities of soil as they are carried out to sea for hundreds of miles.