FALCON ISLAND RECEDING

Taranaki Daily News, 12 June 1928, Page 9

FALCON ISLAND RECEDING

RECENT VISIT BY GEOLOGIST. (By Wire —Special to News.) Auckland, Last Night. The Tongan flag now floats in the tropical breeze above Falcon Island, that mysterious island some 47 miles distant from Tonga, where fire was reported to have been seen by those aboard the steamer Tutanekai when she took a detachment of special police secretly to Samoa. Passengers arriving by the Tofua in Auckland this afternoon stated they were joined at Nukualofa on the run to Suva by Dr. Ladd, an eminent geologist from one of the American universities. Dr. Ladd had made a special visit to Falcon Island with the Premier of Tonga (Fiji) and his party. It was then that the Tongan flag was hoisted on the island. Falcon Island is that mysterious patch of earth in the Pacific which sometimes increases its Size and at other times almost disappears. Dr. Ladd reported that the island at present is just a mound of ashes and deposits of sulphur ia a erater. There were no signs of recent fire or of lava, and he said the island was washing away rapidly through the action of the sea. The American scientist was enthusiastic over his experience in visiting the island, which he regards as a very remarkable phenomenon. Although it is now in process of receding, there is every probability that the island may again assert itself in the fulness of its greatest size.