SUDDEN FORTUNE

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 3969, 7 October 1930, Page 7

SUDDEN FORTUNE

, PEARLING STILL HOLDS ROMANCE The pearling industry of Broome, in Western Australia, teems with romance 1 and tragedy. Here the famous Southern Cross pearl was found. This | extraordinary pearl, or cluster of pearls, is probably the most remarkable that Nature has ever produced. It l contains a group of nine pearls, natur- | ally grown together in so regular a i manner as to form an almost perfect ! Latin cross Seven pearls compose the 1 shaft, which measures one inch and i a-half in length, and the two arms of i the cross are formed of one pearl on j each side, almost opposite to the second I pearl, reckoning from the top downward (writes Frank Reid, in the Melbourne ‘Argus’). The component pearls of the cross , are of fine quality, and they would be lof good shape wore it not that by i natural compression during growth they i have become slightly flattened on their i opposite sides, while some of them. ; though round in front, are distorted i into deep shapes at the back. This i pearl wr K discovered by a man named 1 Clarke, w ho, with his son, was p mng jin the lugger Ethel. The craft was 1 owned by a man named Kelly. When j th? opened shell disclosed the remarkable pearl cross all the craw were Hik'd with amazement and awe. Kelly, who regarded it as a heaven-wrought I miracle, with a certain amount of sup Tstitious dread, buried the pearls, I for how long is not known. 7 lie cross | \, as discovered in 1874, and in 1876 it | was exhibited at the Colonial and InI dian Exhibition, where it attracted j much attention, set in a simple gold ! mount, which left both the back and front of the pearl perfectly free. At j first sight it might have been supposed 1 that the pearls had been artificially i joined together, but a number of i scientists and experts were allowed to j examine the cross closely with power- : liil magnifying glasses and a brilliant : light. | Broome waters have given up many j other remarkable pearls. There is the | story of one found in 1916 in shallow ! depths b\ a black diver which brought ! the remarkable sum of £B,OOO. Then there was the Eacott pearl. There has | been some dispute over the discoverer j of this gem, but the man who owned the lugger, and whose property it beI came, was a pearler named Eacott, and I the gem was named after him. Eacott sold it for £IO,OOO, and promptly invested the proceeds in a station. Some years ago, when 1 was interested in the North Australian pearling industry, 1 was intimately acquainted with Hr Hark Rubin, who. after his death in 1919, left in the i United Kingdom an estate of the value jof £53,946. Rubin was probably the most eccentric pearler in the history of Australia. At Broome many stories are still told of the way in which he carelessly carried pearls of great value, and displaved them wherever he went. It is remarkable that he was not killed ion s ;d occasions, for there were 1 manv desperate characters in Broome who greedily gazed upon the costly gems he so recklessly exhibited. From the first week he interested himself in the pearling industry he had extraordinary luck. If memory serves rightly, it was on his third trip out that one of his divers brought to the surface a pearl which was afterwards sold in London for £B,OOO. Two weeks later the same diver found another gem, which was valued at £IO,OOO. Rubin made a huge fortune in northern pearling waters, but he spent it lavishly When 1 was at Broome in 1905 he gave a banquet on board the s.s. Paroo. As soon as the guests were seated each was presented with a bunch of rare orchids, which had been brought to Broome encased in ice. On another occasion he gave a banquet in Helbourne at which each guest had a plate placed before him in the centre of which lay a pearl of no small value. Jn 1907 a Jewish buyer named Leih gild was lured out at Broome one night by three Malays with a promise of a pearl for sale. He carried £3OO in his clothes to make the purchase. He was stabbed, robbed, and thrown into the creek. The Malays were captured and hanged in Fremantle. The decoy was not a pearl, but merely a glass marble.