The Alaska citizen., 1910-08-22

George Clunies- Ross, King" of the Cocos Islands, died in Europe the other day.
 George Clunies-Ross is described in the British Colonial office list as Superintendent of the Cocos and Keeling Islands" He was in reality proprietor and king of the coral group, which IS in the Indian ocean zoo miles southwest of Sumatra and 525 from it's nearest neighbor, Christ. mas Island There for more than so years the Clunies-Ross family have lived and ruled among popu. lation which has never numbered more than few hundred. including a score of Europeans. and which in 1904 counted $40 souls 511 Cocos Islanders, 67 Bantamese, and two Flu. ropeans.
 The islands were discovered in 1909 by Captain William Keeling. af, ter whom the northern atollon was named The southern or Cocos group appears to owe it's nomencla- ture to the Dutch. Their history be gins with the landing there in 1925 of John Clunies-Ross, the grandfather of George, who found them uninhab- tied. Mir. Frederic w. Jones, in a book shortly to be published under the title of Coral and Atolls." sket- ches the history of this remarkable man. as of his scarcely less remark able son and grandson. The family took refuge in the Shetland Islands after the Jacobite troubles of 1115, and there John Clunies- Ross was born. He led an adventurous sea faring life for some years, in the course of which he fell in with one Alexander Hare, the eccentric son of wealthy London matchmaker, upon whom the East had cast it's spell, and whose dream it was to live the life of an Oriental monarch With Hare. John Clunies-Ross determined to make his home in the Cocos Isl ands. The former brought with him his harem and petty Court; the latter his family. The entire company num- bered 175. There were 20 whites, the rest being natives of Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes, Java, Bal. Sumbawa Timor, New Guinea, India, China, and Zululand. It was motley assemb lage, composed mainly of the ladies of Hare's harem and the crews of the two leaders vessels.
 The motives of the two were very different Hare had fallen into bad grace with his former employers, the East India Company. and was glad to seek a secluded portion of the globe where there were no creditors and no critics of his mode of life Clunies-Ross, as a lover of the sea desired a sea-girt home; but he had also a commercial aim in view. In those days Eastern spices, coffee and pepper found ready market, but the crops arrived at the coast only twice a year, and the ships engaged in the trade had to await the con Venience of the native merchants, since no reserve stocks were kept CluniesRoss thought that a man might buy very cheaply when the crops were abundant, store the pro duce, and sell it at great profit to homeward- bound merchantmen The Cocos Islands were to be his place of storage, and his vessel. the Borneo, was to convey the produce between them and the Malayan group.
 The plan, however, did not work, and Clunies-Ross turned his attention to the cocoa-palms of the island and their many useful products, particu- larly oil. These products still con stitute the sole commercial asset of the islands. A thriving industry was soon set on foot and prosperity at tended the settlers, despite constant quarrelS between the rival chiefs Hare, who treated his people as per sonal slaves, soon found his faction