EASTER ISLAND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21054, 17 June 1930, Page 14

EASTER ISLAND.

THEORY OF SUBMERGED EMPIRE. (Fkqu Oca Own COBBESFOKDEST.) T LONDON, May 8. _ ia * statement' to a representative of The Times yesterday, Professor J. Macmillan Brown dealt with research Work, extending over 30 years, among the peoples and problems of the Pacific.’ t a stay of fire months on Barter island, he said, be examined every burial Elatform and every statue. The puzzle ad always been, to explain the immense statues,' some of .them, weighing overi 100 tons, on an island having only 30,000 acres and not sufficiently fertile to support enough muscular males to haul theetatues into position.- .‘lt had been a question how a little’island 2000 miles from everywhere could have set up the arts of architecture and sculpture. His theory had always been that there had been a large series of archipelagos round Easter Tslnnd formed into an empire, and that the great men of that empire had been buried on Easter Island. , i Captain , Ault. of the Carnegie, had spent 1028 sounding the depths of the South Pacific and Had found a ridge a mile high extending to -the north part of the South Pacific. coast of ‘ America,, and another almost a* high tunning towards the south-west of that coast.' Captain Ault spent over a week taking sound- - ingg round' Easter Island, and found scores of submarine islands. That ap-\ peered to confirm fats theory of an archipelago, and be had looked forward to meeting Captain Ault, but unfortunately both Captain < Ault and his chip were burned in Apia' Harbour when- -loading benzene. His appeared to be the only theory which would explain the statues on Easter Island. He believed the. surrounding islands must have sunk into the sea • some time between 1588 and 1722. He was actually on Easter Island at the time it was reported to have been submerged 1 completely. . '