Comes To Light

AS THE BPC LEAVES NAURU . . .

... An Historic Letter

By Robert Langdon

A letter written 71 years ago, but which has only just come to light, has revealed for the first time the full story of how Nauru’s immensely valuable phosphate deposits were found.

The letter was written by H.

E. Denson, the manager in Sydney of the Pacific Islands Co., about 18 months after he took from Nauru what he thought was a piece of fossilized wood, but which was subsequently identified as high-grade phosphatic rock.

The Denson letter was un earthed by the Australian writer Maslyn Williams, who is prepar ing a book to mark the 50th anniversary of the British Phos phate Commissioners.

The anniversary coincides more or less with the transfer of managerial responsibility for Nauru’s phosphate industry from the BPC to the Nauru Phosphate Corporation, which is wholly Nauru-owned.

This transfer took place on June 30 and represents the third change in the management of Nauru’s phosphate deposits—the first body to work the deposits being the Pacific Phosphate Co., which began operations in 1907.

The Pacific Phosphate Co. was the successor of the Pacific Islands Co., a firm formed in May, 1897, with planting, trading and guano interests in the Pacific.

It was while H. E. Denson was making a tour of the Western Pacific to report on various trad ing stations for his company that he called at Nauru, then known as Pleasant Island, and discovered the piece of “fossilized wood”.

Denson described the discovery in a letter dated July 10, 1899, to his company’s vice-chairman, J. T. Arundel, who was then in London. He referred secretively to the site of his discovery as Frezzent Island in case his letter should fall into the wrong hands.

Denson said that in visiting Frezzent Island he had been “so struck by the peculiar formation of the place” that he had devoted most of the time at his disposal,

which was only one day, “to in specting and exploring the Island”.

In particular, he had visited a cave called Orakar.

Denson quoted from his diary for January 12 (1898) in which he had written: “Went ashore at 9 a.m. with Mr. Halstead and Mr. Smith, visited ‘Orakar’ Cave, evidently an old crater, almost circular in shape and about 60 ft deep by about 10 to 12 ft wide.

“The sides are pitted and scored in places, but otherwise polished smooth with Convolvulous creepers and Tamna Trees grow ing in and out of the rocks and creeping inside and outside of the crater. The rocks everywhere showed signs of fire.

“Around the large crater are numerous small ones, but only a few feet deep, but the bottoms are probably false, creepers and dead leaves choking up the entrance in a solid mass. In one of these small craters, I found

The Full Story,

After 71 Years!

wedged in between two boulders a fossilized tree. This tree was evidently in situ, and had been about 2 ft in diameter. The fact of it being fossilized shows that it must have been many years since these volcanoes were active. . . .”

Denson said (not quoting from his diary) that the “fossilized tree” was “buried among rocks of strange and fantastic shapes”.

He went on: “The fossil was irregularly round and foliated, or more properly speaking of circular stratified appearance, and I fancied I could trace the sections of an ancient tree from the core, ring by ring, until the outer bark was reached.

“The fossil bore evidence of a very great age.

“With the implements carried by our party, a crowbar and

pickaxe, we broke off two blocks of this supposed fossil and re moved it from the rim of the crater. . . .

“The two blocks . . . were carried down some four miles to the boat. The specimens weighed about half a cwt.”

Denson said that he had later shown the specimens to Professor Edgeworth David, Professor of Geology at the University of Sydney, and to another geologist.

Father Curran, and they had both confirmed his opinion that they were parts of a fossilized tree.

They had both been “very anxious” to obtain his specimens for a Sydney museum.

Denson went on: “Mr. G. C. Ellis [a director of the Pacific Islands Co., then in London] will remember the speci mens, they were on the floor of my laboratory and were used to keep the door open.

“The first time Mr. A. F. Ellis [G. C. Ellis’ son, and later Sir Albert Ellis] saw the stone, he was struck with its appearance, and said it looked like Rock Guano, as he had seen specimens very much like it.

“Last week Mr. Ellis chipped off a piece and after applying the usual rough test, found Phosphate present and he at once put it through a quantitive analysis, and proved it to contain 78 per cent, of Phosphate of Lime.

“Now as to the quantity of this deposit, I would not attempt to go into figures, the amount on Frezzent Island is simply enormous, the whole Island is one mass of rock of this nature.”

Denson said he could not suggest how the phosphate could be worked because the island was under German jurisdiction and German laws, and the Jaluit Gesellschaft had the sole right to work its guano deposits.

He added: “There is no doubt about the stuff being what we say it is, and to verify the foregoing, I enclose a small sample with this letter, and as regards quantity, I think the matter need not be con sidered, it is simply enormous”.

Footnote: Eight months after Denson’s letter was written, Albert Ellis was sent to Ocean Island, which was known to be similar in formation to Nauru, to confirm his laboratory findings. He also visited Nauru,