Mineral Wealth
p. 59 · Read in the full issue
From The Sea
WITHIN a few years industrially important quantities of man ganese, nickel, cobalt and copper may be obtained from the sea at 50 to 75 per cent, of the cost of obtaining them from land deposits, according to John L. Mere, a scientist at the University of California.
Dr. Mero says the bed of the Pacific Ocean is a vast repository of chemicals and minerals which may well prove richer than deposits on land.
Estimates made by the Institute of Marine Resources at the University of California are that 1,500,000 million tons of metal nodules lie on the floor of the Pacific Ocean and that some 10,000 tons are added annually.
Dr, Mero says measurements at 26 locations in the central Pacific have averaged about 55.000 tons per square mile.
Eighty Pounds Worth; Mr. Geoffrey
Matthews, an Australian crocodile hunter, shot this 16 ft. monster north of Port Patteson, in the Banks Group of the New Hebrides, recently. He and a team of natives are seen hauling the skin, esti mated to be worth about £80, aboard his Thursday Island lugger "Toriana" at Vanikoro. Mr. Matthews bagged two other crocodiles, measuring 10 ft. and 8 ft., in the Banks Group, but he had no luck when he searched for the beasts at Big Bay, Espiritu Santo. Mr. Matthews was a crocodile hunter in Northern Australia before he moved to the Solomons last October.— Photo: Reece Discombe.