WHITE ISLAND.

Hokitika Guardian, 14 August 1925, Page 1

WHITE ISLAND.

SULPHUR AND GUANO DEPOSITS. AUCKLAND, August 12. The ‘White Island Chemical Company hns completed eighteen months’ initial prospecting, testing and survey work on White Island. Excellent accommodation has been built for the statl, a loading platform has been erected, and tracks to the various deposits have been cut. The company is ready to commence active operations, and members of the management express themselves as very well satisfied. Having gone to the island prepared to be. eonfronted with many difficulties, they were pleasantly surprised to find that no difficulties exist that cannot he overcome, either as to shipping or loading. The material of an old crater has been widely tested as a fertiliser, and is said to be of unique quality. A careful estimate gives the quantity available for shipment from the nearer beaches as two million tons. The deposits of guano, most of which are of high quality, offer no difficulty in the matter of shipping, and although only at present tested to a Comparatively shallow depth of six or seven feet, in many places sljow faces of 20 feet to 22 feet. Free sulphur is to be found everywhere in the crater lied, which covers an area of over 70 acres. .Much of this is pure, and available for immediate shipment. A --ang of incn will commence work this month fireparing the slipways, clearing the track landings and culling the tramway levels, efo. The available sulphur supply of the world has recently been very much curtailed by tlie closing down of the Louisiana Sulphur Company (U.S.A.) The consumption of sulphur and sulphur base fertilisers is enormously on the increase, and this together with the very interesting Wembley Exhibition last year, which showed White Island as die only potential sulphur supply of the Empire, has brought the island very much before the notice of the public in England and the United Sl.i tes.

Questioned as to the possibility of any accident occurring similar to the fatal one of 1911, the directors state they do not iLink there is any chance of anything ot the sort. 1 lie spot where the new camp .has been built is on the other side ot the island. There is a big belt of polmtlikawas between the camp and the hlvitf, and no boulders are lying about, which proves that there have been no slips in that direction for possibly fifty years. After the accident of 1914 a new blowhole was formed, round which there is no overhanging rock, this minimising the chances of anything untoward occur-

Interesting trials have l>oen made in British C’ohmihiii with the White TsI :lll d guano. The Government there Inis had trial shipments which have given wonderful results, and the company holds splendid testimonials in regard to them and also from well-known farmers in New Zealand.