EASTER ISLAND’S FATE

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11412, 8 January 1923, Page 4

EASTER ISLAND’S FATE

THE CHILEAN EARTHQUAKE. DISAPPEARANCE POSSIBLE. If there is any truth in the report that Easter Island has been swalloved up by the hugo tidal set up in the Pacific as the' result of the great earthquake iu Chile; that convulsion of nature must have been, one of the most titanio of which there is any reoord in modern times, says a London paper. The island is, or was, situated two thousand miles from, the coist of Chile, and comprised nearly, fifty square miles, about one-third as large as the Isle of Wight. . Inhabited by some hundreds of natives and a -few Chilean officials, it has become famous by reason of the huge stone statues which dot 1 it 9 surface,’, the origin of which is a baffling problem .for archaeologists. The natives have no knowledge of how they were cor structed, and no tools ox implements capable of being used for the purpose have ever been-discovered. One of these mysterious riatuea may be seen in iho British Museum. So far, there is no definite news that the island) has disappeared, bat it is known that tile tided wave extended as far as that part of the'Paoific. Islands have undoubtedly disappeared! from the Pacific -as ) the result or seismic disturbvanees, «ndr ; as recently ae 1910 one was engulfed off San Salvador, and over 200 of its inhabitants were drowned. Four years previously a mountain nearly 4000 feet high was thrown- up on, one of. the Aleutian Islands, hut -disappeared again a few'months leter duringan earthquake in Alaska. The Bogoelof group, in, the Behring Sea, is very subject, to changes wrought by earthquakes; volcanic .disturbances. One came into existeiice-in IBBS during an earthquake, and a great crater which enownedijt contained smoking and emitting flames for seven years. The most recent addition to ths group occurred in 1906, when it was first seen and charted by an American whaler, and this also remained an active volcanic island for several years. Big earthquakes are often reoorded on European seismographs, the locality of which cannot he assigned, and there is no doUbt but that some of these ooonr beneath the 'beds of the' greet oceans, particularly the Paoifio, whioh has been identified as the birthplace of the moon when it broke away from, the earth, .tbs similarity of its volcanio islands with those now efctinrt on the .moon, as’ revealed by - the cemparision of lunar photographs with photographs of the is-’ .lands taken from balloon®, being quite remarkable.