IMPORTED SULPHUR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21099, 5 February 1932, Page 12

IMPORTED SULPHUR.

Sir, —Some 10 or 12 years ago an Australian enterprise was set afoot to acquire and work Vanua Lava, but for some mysterious reason tho enterprise collapsed. Tho same fate befel a French company about 30 years back. Tho story of this venture is interesting. Tho company realised tho commercial possibilities of the mountain and the natural facilities incidental to working it cheaply and easily. Of these facilities there was, first, the native labour offering, and then Port Patterson, a very secure, though small, and deep, well sheltered harbour, almost at the base of tho mountain. Tho company went to considerable cost in forming a settlement. It built an aerial railway up the mountain side to tho height of nearly 1000 ft., to within 500 ft. of a very rich and easily worked seam of sulphur. It. was a marvellous engineering feat, as the ruins readily attest to this day. Hundreds of natives were employed in digging out the sulphur, which was placed in small bag.-., while hundreds more shouldered the ! bags, carrying (liem down to the terminus of the aerial railway, where truck loads were whisked away with amazing speed to tho pier and storehouse in the bay. All that now remains is tho concrete foundations of tho sulphur " towers," or stores, the piles of the pier, and the twisted and rusted rails of tho railway. What happened is not distinctly known. The company had no sooner put the enterprise into ' -activity than tho " Condominium" or dual government of the New Hebrides, British and French, clapped on a very heavy duty on all sulphur leaving the island. But this was being "fixed up " when the company was refused, without any explanation, a title to own and work the mountain. No doubt the Australian company "must have heard that it was not likely to get a title, and so the enterprises faded out and Vanua Lava remains silent, lonely and idle. These farts are from Chambers' Journal, November, 1931. Interested.