MYSTERY ISLAND.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10410, 25 July 1912, Page 2

MYSTERY ISLAND.

London, -fane 1. A vessel ca.Jad the Mana, which wao launched fit Whitstable, -willSabs to the Pacific an expaditicn whiph will try to salve tbs problem of the gigantic prehistoric remains oa Easts" Island, about 2500 miles west of OMH. The partyj says the Star, will be headed by Mr W. Sooreaby Rcutledge, M A., who will be accompanied by bis wife, a geologist, a ooi,aatlst*ooGnact3cl with tbs British Mn'aenm, and a navigating officer and a osew of fourteen, The Masa, whose ’name la Polynesian for “Good lack, 1 ’ is a 250toa motor , auxiliary yacht. She Is expected to sail about August Ist. . ' In the island, which fass an area of forty-five equate miles, there have been raised immense platforms facing the sea formed of hags stones fitted together without cement. Bbme of these stones weigh five sona. Sometimes the sea walls are aoh. high and 2Cof#„ long On the laud side of these platforms Share are broad terraces, also of stone, containing the pedestals, oa which stood huge figures carved out of traohitio lava from an extinct crater eight miles away. Meat of these images have been thrown down, bat there are 555 of tfiam 'fy the They vary in size -the largest was measured by the commander of H M.S, Cambrian &n 1206, and was 68*6 long. The Hsngtb of its nose was lift. The figures extend down to tha &lps and facas have receding foreheads broad adze-like noses., Ah In lips, and powerful china. Sons-? .of the colossi weigh 250 tons. It is evident that the work of making fens images and dragging them fes Eho platforms stopped suddenly. One of the theories to explain this is that the island is the last pinnacle of a submerged ccutineut, which occupied the greater part of the Sonth Pacific, i»nd possibly joined Asia and America, YaaE numbers of skeletons are under tbs platforms. The bones are probably those of people who were sacrificed to the great s*one images.