Pitcairn Calling!

American Plan to Set Up a Broadcasting Station.

Prom Our Own Correspondent.

Honolulu, Feb. 23.

AS a stunt for the great networks of radio broadcasting stations in America, two U.S. radio engineers, L.

S. Bellem, Jr., and Granville P. Lindley, are to set sail shortly for Pitcairn Island and there install a temporary radio broadcast station, sponsored by a group of American radio manufacturers.

Broadcasts from the island are to begin at the end of March.

Since the publication of the fictionised books of Pitcairn adventure by Nordhoff and Hall, the American novelists who live in Tahiti, great interest has been aroused in U.S.A. in Britain’s lonely island and its unusual colony.

Dr. Harry L. Shapiro, who surveyed certain aspects of the Pitchimers under the auspices of the Bishop Museum, Hawaii, in the last issue of the maga zine of the American Museum of Natural History related unusual facts about .the present day inhabitants.

The genetic result of the mutiny of the “Bounty” 150 years ago is a new type of man, physically superior in all but his teeth. He defies some popular beliefs about half-castes and in-breeding.

The first result was an almost “explosive flowering of civilisation”. The hybrid mixture almost immediately was bigger and taller. It averaged three inches taller than the white man, two and half inches over the Tahitian.

Fertility reached the human peak of 9.1 offspring to each mating of the second generation, but this prolific flowering fell off so that to-day it aver ages to only three per family. Stature has decreased, too, but not back to that of the original ancestry.

The white man bequeathed his teeth to them. The perfect teeth of the Tahitian mothers were lost. Pitcairners, Dr. Shapiro found, have worse teeth than the average civilised white man, and this may be due to lack of scien tific aids. Records show that some of the mutineers had bad teeth.

In colour, the Pitcairners vary from half white to almost pure white. In culture these lonely people adopted 12 English living customs, 17 native, and developed eight that were inspired by a new environment where tools and materials were different.

Mr. H. S. Russell has been appointed Collector of Customs at Samarai, Papua.

Ratu Deve Toganivalu, 1.5.0., has re signed from the Fiji Legislative Council.

Dr. Rutter, of New Zealand, and two nurses, Cwill shortly join Sister Edna White, of the N.Z. Methodist Mission in the Solomon Islands, to assist in the Society’s medical work in 8.5.1.

Mr. S. Roberts, N.Z. Public Service Inspector, returned to New Zealand by the March “Maui Pomare”, after an official visit to Samoa. He was accom panied by Mrs. Roberts.