The Missing Lode

Fruitless Search for Rich Copper Vein on Rurutu

From Our Own Correspondent

Papeete, Feb. 12.

THE mirage of Golconda has flickered over many an island of the South Seas and has drawn men from afar to seek not only Inca gold and the bur ied hoards of long dead buccaneers, but fabulous riches of mineral treasure re puted to lie in the heart of mountains, awaiting the prospector and the miner.

During the past quarter of a century, the descendants of traders, sea-faring men and planters (who, during the pre ceding 70 years, had visited and traver sed the phosphate island, MakaLea. with out suspecting the riches lying just be neath the jungle roots), have been seek ing consolation by ransacking the moun tainous interior of Tahiti for a possible vein of some precious metal. Now and again rumour has carried the story of gold or platinum in some remote valley; but never has anything tangible come out of these reputed discoveries and it has long ago been accepted that the mountains of Tahiti conceal no treasure of metals or mineral wealth.

IT was with no little surprise, therefore, that the watchers on the wharf one day beheld two U.S. mining engineers descend from a mail steamer, bearing the paraphernalia of their pro fession. They did not disclose their er rand. It was not long, however, before the cloud of mystery which shrouded their comings and goings became lumin ous with forked lightning and clam ourous with angry cries. Presently from its murky depths emerged two of the most indignant citizens who had ever breathed the air of these latitudes.

They stormed into the United States Consulate with a story of ore samples equal in richness to the highest grade copper ore from mines in the Peruvian Andes, represented to them as having been taken from a large ore vein in the mountains of Tahiti. They had voyaged all this distance to verify and explore this ore body, and now the man who had sent the specimens was refusing to reveal the secret of its location. Where was that ore vein? Did the Consul know? They wanted satisfaction, dam ages. vengeance—and so on for hours, until the Consulate quaked with the violence of their fury.

The harassed and bewildered Consul could offer no aid or consolation. Nor could the mountains and the sea to which the engineers addressed daily orations of masterly composition. Fin ally. the steamer arrived and they de parted. The owner of the house where they lodged complained bitterly that his walls were so blistered and scorched it was necessary to have them scraped and repainted. Inhabitants of the north coast of Tahiti reported that after the steamer had passed, a thick, purple mist had hovered over the ocean long after the vessel had vanished beyond the horizon.

WHEN cosmic balance was restored, some local magnates instituted an investigation. The ore specimens which, in their wrath, the mining en gineers had hurled on the floor of the Consulate, were examined and found to be. indubitablv. copper ore of very super ior quality. The man who had sent the samples to California reluctantly con

fessed he did not know the place whence they came.

A native had brought them in, he explained. This native had told him of great quantities of the same kind of rock lying about; but was crafty and would not disclose the precise location Believing that he could persuade or bribe the native, at some future date to impart

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five had disappeared. One could well imagine his consternation when these ensineers shook the ore samples in his face and demanded to be led to the place whence they had been taken; after what he had been through he felt, and presumed he looked, like the sole survivor of a volcanic disaster. If the magnates wished for the ore specimens they could have them: on the one con-

dition that copper and copper mines should never again be mentioned in his presence. The magnates agreed.

In due time they found the native and by virtue of largess added to rich promises, garnered the intelligence that the ore specimens had come from the is land of Rurutu. An expedition verified that there was a lot of the same kind of rock lying about.

NOT long afterward, watchers on the Papeete wharf beheld, descending from a ship, a mining engineer. He was welcomed joyously by the magnates, refreshed after his long voyage, and de spatched with his paraphernalia aboard a schooner to Rurutu. For months he delved and pick-axed and drilled and tunneled. He found pockets of mangan ese of high quality, hectares of paint rock, and slight traces of many metals;

but .no vein of copper. He returned to Papeete and departed.

After a season, another and more em inent mining engineer arrived. He was received, refreshed and packed off by schooner to Rurutu. He delved and pick

axed and drilled and tunneled. He found pockets of manganese, hectares of paint rock, traces of many metals; but no vein of copper. The magnates were bewild ered, but resolved to try once more.

The third expert, with his other para phernalia, took to Rurutu a sound know ledge of Polynesian languages—acquired after a residence of many years in the islands. He found manganese, paint rock and traces of many metals. In addition he unearthed a venerable ancient of Rurutu who remembered things the care less younger generations had long for gotten.

This patriarch told many a tale of the olden time to his sympathetic listener.

One was of a white man’s ship which came from a land far beyond the rising of the sun and was driven by a storm on the reefs of Rurutu. She had been laden—much to the wonderment of the natives—with ofai (rock). They were curious ofai; different from anything found on Rurutu. The wind and seas had broken up the ship and tossed these strange ofai on the shallows and beaches.

When the engineer heard this story he awoke to the fact that to arrive at the mother lode of all this scattered ore, he would have to drive a tunnel four thou sand miles to the eastward! He packed his belongings and came with all haste to Papeete.

RECENTLY, the discovery of gold in Fiji raised hopes and started exploring activity in all the mountainous is lands of the Pacific —except Tahiti. On

that island the winds of promise did nothing more than stir ashes of dead hopes in which no spark of adventure remained that could be fanned into even a faint semblance of a glow.