PENGUIN ISLAND

Hokitika Guardian, 27 August 1930, Page 2

PENGUIN ISLAND

A FAMOUS SPOT

ITS INTERESTING HISTORY

Not many can claim to have set foot on the gma.l, lonely island la* to the south ol the Indian Ocean which Anatole France took for tinoriginal of bis “Penguin Island.” 0* those who can, however, Air R. G. Simmers, M.Sc., is one. Air Simmer. 1 was meteorologist with the recent Ma.wson Antarctic Research Expedition, and the expedition ship Discovery, tlie famous vessel that Scot! used, spent some time at the islanc on its cruise in southern waters. The work and itinerary of the expedition were sketched bv Air Simmers last week in an address gi\en before the technological! section of tlr Wellington Philosophical Society, and lie mentioned a little of what lie ieferred to as the “exceptionally interesting history” of “Penguin Island.”

Hie island itsa’F, of an odd triangular shape, with sides each 90 miles long. Wits discovered first by a" old French navigator. Its tot’i'GUt name, ttfitl the one by which it bits always been kiloWU, Is Kerguelen Island.' In bis haste and excitement, the old Frenchman hurried straight back to hi« native country, thinking that he had discovered the Australian continent. Such was found to be incorrect, and the unfortunate man was banished. It was visited later by Cantain Cook on a famous voyage, said Mr Simmers. Sea's and. penguins have* abounded there in millions, for when the sealing industry reached its height in 1810. no fewer than 500 ships were engaged at the island. Mortality among seals and penguins evidently reached a high figure, for 30 or 40 years later no penguins and t few sea's remained. The island had been the scene of several famous visits by scientists. The navail ship Challenger visited it before the transit of Venus last century to find if it was suitable for a transit observing station. The expedition came the next year, and AD Simmers showed a lantern slide in the foreground of which ■ were the original concrete piles on which the transit instrument had been set. One of the piles remained standing, and the other lay wearily on its side. Tlie Gauss expedition, too, visited the island. The fixture to which was attached their instrument for observing the magnetic dip a comparatively short distance from the transit expedition’s concrete ni’.es, and Air Simmers himself w?io diet magnetic work oil the Atawsdn expedition, used ( the s.aine means of fixing .his own .‘‘dip circle” as was used by the Gauss expedition many years ago.

It was a strange place, said Air Simmers, with plenty of sounds, lagoons and sea inlets, so much so, indeed, that no part of the island was further than twelve miles from the ocean. It was full of marine ramifications. Kerguelen Island wp<s credited, too, with the worst weather in the world. Apart from 70 miles-an-hour gales which dropped suddenly, and sprang up again within a tninute to 60 miles an hour. Air Simmers was not prepared to agree with tho statement. The island iss now owned by ft Frenchman who "has a 50-year lease from the French Government.