Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1904-02-02
SOME LOST ISLANDS
DOTS IN THE OCEAN THAT HAVE
BEEN MIStAlD.
Some Of Them Would Bring Great
Wealth to Their Fortunate Discov-
erers-Long Sought for Breeding
Place for Seals.

| Somewhere in the Great Southern
| ocean, says an English newspaper, a
| few hundred miles south and by west
Of Heard island, is an ice-capDed, sea
] girt fragment o. land that will some
! day be worth a small fortune to its
| lucky discoverer-or, rather, one
would say. to its "re-dscoverer"-for
the island In question has already
been found and lost
Ever since 1855 there has been es-
tablished at Heard i5'and, amid eter-
nal ice and fog and snow, d tiny col
ony Of hardy mon engaged in catch
ing the seals that come there to breed.
Capt. Rogers. Of the whaler Corinth-
ian, was the first man to set foot on
, the place, and he rcdped an unprece
densedly rich harvest, securing in
single day over five hundred barrels
OF oil. 1t was then supposed that the
dlrimals would quickly be killed off, as
they have been en- the PribylOff isl
ands and elsewhere; but as the years
passed by and the seals continued az
plentiful as ever, the sealers reasoned
correctly that there must exist, not far
distant, some other place where tho
breed was kept up. To try and locate
this supposititious island many a seal
Ing sloop made long detours amid the
Antarctic drift; and at last one Of
them, the Southern Cross, commanded
j bJ Capt. Panton, was successful. But
Oh tho way back the vessel was
wrecked, the master was drowned
and the latitude and longitude of tho
little fragment of rock was lost
Then again there is Nimrod island,
! discovered in 1928 by Capt. Eilbeck, or
the whaler Of that name, and since
repeatedly sought for in vain 1t was
seported by its discGverer 10 be COW
cred with guano, the product of the
countless myriads Of penguins that re-
sorted there to breed; and it is this
fact doubtless, which has ispired tho
many expeditions that have from time
to time been organized to search for
II.
The Grampus 1slands, discovered by
Capt. Meares, in April, IT'S, lie some
where not very Jar 10 the northWard
af the Mariana gfoup in the Western
tttt'l'=t otl t*iN-il Stst' lj'}2i tt3ll ~
@aa knows is able to determine.
Gar&os island, III tie China sea, has
been SIGHTED thrice in q century, and
several fine vessels are believed to
aave been lost upon it.
Marcus. or Weeks, island, is another
mystery of these iitae known seas.
Finally, the Marshall islands, in the
South Pacific, have been misland, not
once only, but twice. They were first
discovered in 1929 by one of the old
Spanish navigators, Don Alvalo de
aavedra by name, and were by him
explored and chartered But when
next year he again went In search Of
! them they were nowhere to be found.
In the year 1888, however, Can't. Mar
shall of the British ship Scarborough
rediscoyered the islands and reChris
tened them With his own name. He
made. too, the most careful 0bserva
tions az to their precise locality. Yet
when. a little later, Il government sur
vev1ns ship tried to lind them with
view TO taking soundingS, they had
again disappeared Since then they
have been sought foI in vain, and al
though they appear On the admiralty
charts, 1t liz with the explanatory
sootnote. "3osition doubtful. attached
theTCf =,