Isolated Niuafou

One Day’s Fame

In Path Of Eclipse

It is expected that a party of scien tists, probably led by Professor P. W.

Burbidge, professor of physics at Auck land University, will travel by a war ship from New Zealand to Niuafou, in the Tongan Islands, in September, to observe a total eclipse of the sun on October 21. Niuafou is about 200 miles north by west of Vavau.

There are only two places in the Pacific where the eclipse will be seen, and the other is a tiny, uninhabited island. The expedition has been prom ised the active assistance of the Ton gan Government, and probably will sail from Nukualofa for Niuafou late in September. An American naval party from Pago Pago may also visit Niua fou.

Niuafou, which has a population of 1,100, (there are only half a dozen whites), will interest the scientists. It is really the crater of an extinct vol cano, and consists of a rim of high land, varying in width, and enclosing a mineral-water lake three miles long.

It is wonderfully fertile, and produces the largest cocoanuts in the Pacific.

The island is the home of the malau. or megapode, a strange, burrowing bird, remarkable for producing an egg of enormous size. It is a charming, but lonely and isolated island. There is no anchorage, and a landing is ef fected sometimes with great difficulty; so when the Fiji-Samoa steamer is passing, a native often swims out with the mail. The natives are noted for their wonderful skin—the result of fre quent bathing in the mineralised lake.