Sensational Newspaper Story Follows

Visit of Geologists to BSI

From Our Own Correspondent

Honiara, June 20.

MYSTERIOUS St. George’s Island, off the coast of Ysabel, in the Solo mons, has been investigated by a party of Australian experts—Dr. O. A.

Jones, professor of economic geology of Brisbane University, Mr. Roy Hudson, Broken Hill solicitor, and Mr.. John Grover, of Bondi, a post-war CRTS un dergraduate in final year mining and metallurgy at Sydney University. Their interest was directed to the geological possibilities of the island. * St. George’s Island is supposed to be the spiritual home of the Ysabel people when they die. Now and again, according to native accounts, the dead rise for a spree and can be heard singing and dancing while mysterious lights twinkle over the hillsides.

Writing about 400 years ago, Mendana described it as a prosperous island with some 6,000 families living on it. The next historical reference is made about a cen tury later, when it was described as com pletely uninhabited. What became of the islanders, or what caused them to evacuate their island, is buried in anti quity. Its reputation now, anyway, is sinister —much involved with debbils.

Modern practice, although still respect ful towards the ancestral dead, permits Ysabel people to visit St. George’s for copra cutting purposes, without ill effects.

Dr. Jones and Messrs. Hudson and Grover arrived in the Group by Qantas plane in May to make a complete geolo gical survey, and to map the gold-bearing areas of Gold Ridge, in the Guadalcanal mountains. This is to provide the basis for the possible re-opening of mining operations. Messrs. Grover and Hudson made an earlier but brief visit to Gold Ridge in March, 1948.

As a result of ten days’ work at Gold Ridge, they shipped 104 bags of various geological specimens by the mid-June “Muliama” for assay in Australia. At the request of the BSI Government they have also examined other near-at-hand, re ported mineral occurrences in the Group.

There are possibilities, according to Dr.

Jones, of chromite and asbestos being found on St. George’s Island, which also has the characteristics of platinum bearing country. He said that only the' surface of the mining potentialities of the locality has been scratched in their month’s visit. But he thought that the Protectorate, given the interest of mining enterprise, should have a fertile mining future.

The geologists’ last visit was made to Kovogombi, east of Gold Ridge, where they prospected several rivers.

Editorial Note

IT is an interesting sidelight on modern journalism to contrast the above story with the piece of nonsense which appeared in the Melbourne “Sun” on June 21. Under the startling head line, “5,000 Natives Vanished from Hoo doo Pacific Island,” was printed the following:— Out in the Solomon Islands there’s a haunted island called St. George, 80 miles north-west of Guadalcanal, where 5,000 natives have mysteriously vanished.

This was stated by a party of Aus tralian mining experts, who returned to-day from the uninhabited “hoodoo”

island, 12 miles wide and five miles long.

One of the party, Mr. J. C. Grover, a Sydney mining engineering student, said that the Solomon Islands Govern ment could not solve the mystery.

Natives of the adjoining Ysabel Island told the party that St. George was populated now only by spirits of the missing natives.

Natives would not land on the island even in the daytime, much less at night.

The party, which included also Mr.

E. R. Hudson, of Broken Hill, and Dr.

A. O. Jones, of the Brisbane University, tried to induce some oif the Ysabel natives to accompany them as guides on St. George.

The natives weren’t interested.

Eventually, the party found a Chris tian native guide, but he would not stay on the island overnight.

The party has been exploring the mineral possibilities of the Solomons.

NO indication Is given, in the above, that all this is supposed to have happened about four hundred years ago, and then only on the evidence of Mendana, an unreliable witness. iviendana discovered Ysabel, Guadal canal and San Christoval in 1568. He did not make much of an investigation

but four months later he was back in Peru claiming that he had discovered a region of fabulous wealth. He was given a colonising licence but, for one reason or another, did not start on his second expedition until 1595. This time he managed to miss the Solomons altogether anc J,« aII JS Svf Santa Cruz poup, to the south. The expedition S ied x t 0 their colony there, but Mendana died and the remnants of them eventually returned home under the guidance of the navigating officer, de Q uiros - No other European visited the Solomons for 200 years, so whether or not St.

George ever had a population of 5,000 or whether it was just another of Men dana’s fabrications, no one will ever know.

The thousands of readers of the Mel bourne “Sun,” however, can be pardoned -f or believing that this flourishing native community mysteriously disappeared in recent times. The fact that these people ma y or may not have van i S hed 400 years ago , is of no particular news value. Pre sented in such a way that it appears that it might have happened recently, it is startling and has appeal to the sensation seeking readers of Australian newspapers, The logical consequence of this piece

of irresponsible reporting is for the Rus sian delegate to ask in the UN Assembly just what the brutal British have done to cause these poor exploited natives to disappear completely from their Island home.