Guano

Torres Straits

A Dead Industry?

Raine Island’S Wealth

(From Our Thursday Island Correspondent.) AMONG the hopes that spring eternal in the human breast is that of making easy money, and there are optimists who persist in believing that Nature leaves fortunes scattered around in desert places for the mere picking up. The world could ill spare such folk; occasionally their instincts prove true and universal benefit re sults.

It was probably for this reason that a sample of guano was recently brought in from one of the many small islands where it is found, and submitted for analysis to Brisbane.

The results did not encourage further investigations, and it may be taken for granted that guano seekers here abouts are wasting their time. In the past some money was made out of guano and, seeing that deposits occur on Channel Rock, Red Wallis, Bramble Cay and other islands, the subject is not without interest to local people.

Excluding the well-known deposits of the Pacific, guano hails principally from the coasts of Peru. Probably it was used by the ancient Incas, and it was introduced to the notice of Euro pean farmers by Humboldt, who bought samples from South America.

It requires an almost rainless climate and an abundant fish supply for the sea birds to feed on. After deposit, various chemical substances percolate into underlying rocks of a soft nature, such as coral, for instance, and form a friable material rich in phosphorus and nitrogen.

The guano formerly obtained from Raine Island on the Barrier Reef, about eighty miles south-east of Thurs day Island, was of this nature, and had the appearance of soft white sand stone. The centre of Raine Island almost entirely removed during the ’seventies of last century, when an American, and later a Scottish com pany, were engaged in the collection of guano there The work was done by Chinese coolies, seme of whom left their bones on this desolate spot and were provided with gravestones by their employers; these are still visible near the old workings.

Another curiosity of Raine Island is a hollow round tower, made of blocks of guano stone, which was erected by a party of naval men from H.M. ships Bramble and Fly, in the year 1843, or thereabouts. It was put there to mark the passage through the reefs for ves sels coming from the Pacific, in the days when it was thought nothing short of suicidal to venture through the Bar rier Channel from Capricorn north wards. The tower, or beacon, is vis ible for a long distance, and has proved very useful in the past. Un fortunately, it is now starting to crumble, and the name of the erect ing vessel can no longer be deciphered.

After Raine Island was worked out a move was made to Rocky Island, one of the Wellesley group, lying well down in the Gulf of Carpentaria. One of the most tragic wrecks in the history of Torres Straits was that of the Kana hooka, which was destroyed at Rocky Island during a cyclone while loading guano. After this mishap the busi ness was discontinued. Nor is it likely to be revived in Torres Straits.