Cocos Is. May Yield

Some Treasure

IF recent investigations prove fruitful, Costa Rica’s Cocos Island in the extreme eastern Pacific, famed for the gold hoard of Lima which it has failed to give up to the numerous searching ex peditions, may yet yield treasure of another sort—for Pacific mariners.

The US Coastguard has been in vestigating the island as a site for a radio Loran (long range navigation) station to provide coverage for the approaches to the Panama Canal.

Loran stations work in pairs, spaced not more than 600 miles apart, and they provide an accurate “fix” of the position of ship or air craft, completely independent of any celestial navigation, at ranges of up to 700 miles by day and 1,400 miles by night.

A network of such stations ex tends across the North Pacific to Japan at present, and a similar net extended down to Samoa and Fiji during the war, and would no doubt still be serving mariners if the Americans had not been shooed away from the three southern stations at Makin (Gilberts), Funafuti (Ellice Is.) and Atafu (Tokelaus).

After the Americans departed from Atafu and Funafuti the stations,

complete with all equipment, lay rusting for years. Atafu was eventu ally dismantled by the NZ Govern ment in 1951 when it was purchased from the United States. Funafuti’s valuable equipment still sat moulder ing at a later date and its ultimate fate is unknown. Makin was manned for longer than the other

stations, and the equipment the may have been removed by t] Americans when they departed. t Mr. L. Tepuleai, returning Samoa from Auckland in Novemb was farewelled aboard Matua Mrs. A. G. Dean and Mrs. L. Mil both well known in Apia.