Solomons' Gold
p. 19 · Read in the full issue
Theodore Forty Prospecting on Guadalcanal
THE exploratory party sent to the Solo mons by Mr. E. G. Theodore to investigate gold-mining possibilities is now at work in the interior of the great, primitive island of Guadalcanal.
The camp, in August, was at a point on the inland ranges, about 22 miles from the coast.
There was an interesting development soon after the party arrived. Mr.
Cramer Roberts, the manager, pegged a location near Tulagi, and hurriedly returned South. There is said to be a deposit of manganese there. The local people had been talking about it for years, but never had bothered to peg it.
Nowadays, manganese is valuable.
A Tulagi correspondent writes inter estingly of the new development;— “The Solomon Islands have never appealed to me greatly, and I can under stand them being the white mam’s ruin, that they are supposed to be. They are not developed nearly as much as the islands north of Choiseul, which come under the New Guinea mandate, and it seems that only a rich strike of gold would ever put any life into the place.
So far, there seems to be nothing worth while for a company, and any rich lodes have yet to be found.
“There is no big native population in Guadalcanal, and so bush tracks and native villages are few and far between, which means that rice for native labour ers will have to be carried everywhere, and there is not the usual chance of getting eggs and a few vegetables from native villages. Also, quite a few parts are regarded by the natives as tabu, and they refuse to go there.
“It is funny to see the old BSI ex planters sitting around the table in Chinatown’s luxurious hotel, in Tulagi, drinking their beer and chewing at their pipes, while they talk in terms of sluice heads, pennyweights to the yard, refrac tory ore, and so on. Once upon a time it was Ceylon driers, beetle borer, green mould, kanaka trade, and so on.”
Mr. J. Wingate, a resident of Titika veka, Rarotonga, left the Cook Islands for the United States, via NZ, in August.
Rev. Maurice and Mrs. Nixon, together with their daughter, Margaret, will re turn shortly to Papua, where Mr Nixon is engaged in work for the London Mis sionary Society. They have been in Australia for several weeks on furlough.