^■■/- d. 



^rjio/Le^i^S 



CHRISTMAS ISLAND 



A Bit of Phosphate Rock from a Dredge's 

 Gatherings Revealed Its Secret and Its 

 Mines 6f Phosphate 



[From the N«w York Sun] 

 Christmas Island is a* speck of land, 

 shaped like a dumbbell, rising steeply from 

 the Indian Ocean 190 miles south of Java. 

 No one is known ever to have landed on it 

 previous to 1887. It was thought of only as 

 a little rock, without good anchorage, not 

 j worth examining while large regions were 

 still white on the maps. 



Biit today some fifty men are living on 

 Christmas Island, and now and then we sec 

 a paragraph in the trade journals telling of 

 the increasing quantity of phosphate thac 

 it is shipping Last year, for example, as 

 we are told by one of these authorities, 

 the island shipped 71,757 tons of phosphate, 

 and new methods of loading vessels were 

 introduced, something like those by which 

 iron ore is poured into the holds of Lake 

 Superior steamers. The phosphate is tipped 

 from a high pier into the ship. The last 

 vessel to sail loaded in a day with loOO 

 tons. 



It was a deep sea research that pointed 

 to Christmas Island as a source of wealth, 

 and the real facts in the case have only 

 recently been told. 



About ten years ago a British naval ves- 

 sel started for the Indian Ocean to ex- 

 amine a part of its sea floor. Its main 

 work was a long distance from Christmas 

 Island, but Sir John Murray, the great 

 Scottish oceanographer, in mapping out 

 the project, happened to think of an area 

 around Christmas Island where no in- 

 vestigations had been made. He suggested 

 that the vessel diverge from its course to 

 make soundings and collect samples from 

 the ocean bed in the neighborhood of 

 Christmas Island. 



The work was thoroughly done, and in 

 due time a list of soundings and specimens 

 of the mud and bits of rock dredged from 

 the bottom were delivered at Sir John's lab- 

 oratory near Edinburgh. In the collection 

 was a fragment of rock which he could not 

 identify on casual inspection, and it excited 

 his curiosity. He made an analysis of the 

 fragment and found that it was phosphate. 



There could be little doubt that it came 

 from some land mass; but where was its 

 place of origin? It was far from any land of 

 important size, and Christmas Island was 

 the only land anywhere near it. Could It 

 have been dropped from a passing vessel, or 

 was it really a part of the rock that built 

 up Christmas Island? The problem was 

 worth investigating. Tj^iiiiit 



It was not long"WforenahoTher vessel ;m! 

 a scientific mission was sent to the Indian 

 Ocean, and at the request of Sir John Mur- 

 ray she was ordered to stop at Christmas 

 Island and collect specimens illustrating its 

 geology for every twenty feet of altitiirle 

 from sea level to the summit of the island. 

 The specimens were to be sent to him for 

 his examination. 



The results fulfilled the most sanguine 

 expectations of the man of science. There 

 was no longer any doubt of the existence 

 of a thick bed of phosphate on the island. 

 But to ascertain all the conditions and 

 the prospects of mining with profit Sir 

 John made a journey to it. He found that 

 the mineral offered a promising commer- 

 cial possibility; that there was good anch- 

 orage on one side of the island, and that 

 by building a wharf with a second story, 

 on which trucks could be run out, vessels 

 might be loaded easily and cheaply. 



A company was organized, with the 

 necessary capital, Parliament made a con- 

 cession, giving the company the right to 

 work the phosphate for a series of years, 

 and development was begun. It has been 

 a most profitable venture, and the best of 

 it Is that it has placed Sir John Murray, 

 who, like most scientific men. had no 

 superfluity of this world's goods, in very 

 comfortable circumstances for the rest of 

 his life. 





«r 



