Evening star., 1935-05-21
WAKE ISLANDERS
FIND EARLY BOAT
Meaqer Traces Left to Tell
of Grim Fight Waged
In Lonely Spot.
BY JUNIUS B. WOOD.

~ Radio to The Star.
WAKE ISLAND. May 81 (N.A.
E.A.).-Like the years that have faded
into shadowy memories, men have
come to these barren Islands. Wake,
Wilkes and Peale, tarried awhile and
departed, never to return.
Who they were, why they came,
whether they we're forced ashore by
disaster at sea, how they survived
without fresh water, whether they un-
furled their own canvas and sailed
away or whether another wandering
schooner sighted their signals of dis
tress and rescued them, only they can
tell-or possibly only their children
or cronies in distant lands to whom
they told the tale.
Such traces as the visitors left
behind can answer these questions
only vaguely, and this inhospitable
ledge of rock and sand. Tapped by the
broad Pacific, was too insignificant
an atom in the teeming world ever
before to attract the historians at
tention.
Natures Toll Heavy.
Time has all but erased even these
traces. Waging their unending bat
tie through the years, torrential down.
pours and the blazing tropical sun
have wiped out the record of even
time itself until it is impossible to
tell how long such ruins have been
here. They are not of imperishable
stone but of decaying wood and rust
ing iron, eaten by the weather.
gnawed by rats and ants and tossed
by every typhoon.
1t seems certain that fishermen
once lived on Peale Island, the only
one of the three suitable for habi-
tation. When party of American
scientists visited the island II years
ago, staying for two weeks, the fish
ermen's houses were standing and
there was also a sign bidding the
island good-by and bearing the date
of their departure. They had been
gone then Is years. Today, after
AZ years, the once snug buildings
have given up the fight against the
indomitable weather. Fallen scraps
Of wood and an occasional piece of
broken crockery tell that the site was
once inhabited.
That they were fishermen is possible,
but why should fishermen come to this
bleak and inaccessible spot. 1000 miles
from the nearest island, when fish are
more plentiful only few hundred
miles from home? More likely they
were hunters, collecting the bright
plumage of countless thousands of
birds.
Search for Old Boat.
There is another fallen building on
Wilkes Island, plainly of the same con-
struction as those on Peale.
I wsded across the shallow, coral
etrewn channel from Wilkes Island,
where the temporary camp of the PAN
American Always Expedition is To-
Gated to Wake Island, largest of the
group. 1t was not my first crossing,
but this time I was searching for an
abandoned boat which visitors in pre-
Vious years reported seeing.
In the chanel Hawaiian dynamite
expert was blasting boulders, and dull
booms were followed by rocks and
water spouting hundred feet in the
air. A cleaning gang then cleared a
passageWay through which empty
barges can be pulled from the ocean
to the quieter lagoon inside when the
tide is running high.
Another popularity of this freak
among islands is that, regardless of
whether the tide is high or low, the
current always runs with the swiftness
Of trout stream from the lagoon out