Evening star., 1942-08-16
SoIomons Are Key
In Japan S Plans 10
EncircIe Australia
IsIonds Hove Been Scene
Of Mojor Activity
For Eight Months

BY Wide World.
NEW YORK, Aug. 15.-You may
never have heard OF the Solomon
Islands until the current headlines.
but you have known them for = long
time II you ever read = South Seas
story or seen South Seas picture.
The Solomons might be the standard
background.
Tulagi, the little island where the
fighting has centered, looked like
the beginning Of a Somerset
Vaughan tale. A palm lined fringe
of white beach. :. Rising up from
it. volcanic mountainside, with
scattered white bungalows with red
roofs contrasting sharply with the
surrounding jungle green.
Crude landing stages leading up
to cluster of neat Government
buildings, post off1ce. two mercan-
tile establishments, a little hotel run
by Chinese.
A bare, loin-clothed native with
a modern bayoneted rifle standing
guard in front of a white sentry box
at his majesty's resident commits
sioner's quarters.
A hundred white men scattered
among Tulagi and two nearby sub
urb' islands. :. A 90,00O-acre Coco
nut plantation of the Lever Bros.
Soap Co. the principal activity. /.
A periodical boat from Sydney, Aus
tralia, the only regular contact with
civilization. -.
Has 2-Foot Frogs That Bark.
The temperature averages around
80; It Is very humid, and 1t rains 1854
inches year. The wind blows
steadily from the southeast during
the dry season" from May to Oc-
tober, and monsoons come from the
northwest during the wet season
from November to April.
The Solomons are a land of wild
boars. wild dogs, 2-foot frogs that
bark, 500 white people and $4,000
wild, black, frizzly haired head
hunting cannibals, who use shells
for money, put their dead out on the
coral reefs to be eaten by the sharks,
which are venerated, and who as
recently as 1927 staged an uprising
necessitating martial law.
The Solomons are a striking IL
lustration, for armchair war-puz-
zlers, of the great magnitude of this
global war.
Their name conjures an impress
sion OF a couple of PALM -fringed
Hollywood musical backgrounds
Actually, the Solomons consist of
1000 islands stretched out in a great
S00-mile arc, part of one-half OF
the pincers with which the Japs
are trying to encircle Australia.
They were named by the Spanish
explorer, Alvaro Mendana, who dis
covered them In 1867 on the basis
OF belief that they contained gold
and were the source of the riches
OF King Solomon. No gold was
found until 1880, and then not in
profitable quantity, and the
islands principal product has been
copra (dried coconut) and small
quantities Of rubber, bananas, pine
apples, sweet potatoes, ivory nuts
and timber. A million dollars worth
OF exports went out OF the islands
every year before the depression;
later the figure dropped to about
half.
Rediscovered Later.
Two hundred years after Men.
dana, the Solomons were rediscov-
cred by the French explorer, Louis
Antoine de Bougainville, who gave
his name to the well-known flower
Ing tropical shrub and also to the
largest of the 10 big islands, which
is l2O miles long and IS miles wide
with an area OF $500 square miles
On it is Kieta, the capital of the
northern half of the group which
| was placed under Australian man
date by the League of Nations In