DISAPPEARANCE OF TWO ISLANDS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5076, 30 June 1877, Page 3

DISAPPEARANCE OF TWO ISLANDS.

The West Australian correspondent of the Melbourne Leader writes on May 35 as follows :—During Mr. Weld's administration Captain Fisher, from Tasmania, said to be a large capitalist, purchased from the West Australian Government the right to remove guano from two islands on this caast, described on the map as Barker's Islands. But when he went to get his guano the islands could not be found. Whether they got a wrong place on the map by accident, or have recently disappeared below the sea level, no one knows. It is certainly improbable that they should be assigned a latitude and longitude, and enjoy a reputation for containing a valuable article of commerce, if they never had any existence. But, on the other hand, Australia is supposed to lie so completely out of the line of any volcanic current that the subsidence of an island on its coast seems almost next to impossible. Be this as it may, Captain Fisher, when he reached the spot where his islands were supposed to be, found them gone. On his return home he sought compensation from the West Australian Government for his expenses and loss of time ; but finding he could get nothing on this score, ho proposed, as the next best thing, to lease the Lacepede Islands. These islands, a few months ago mere uninteresting rocks, visited only by sea fowl, have been destined to be made famous, first, as a subjeet of dispute between two great nations, and next by the misfortunes they seem to bring on those who seek to enrich themselves by their means. A fatality seems to hang over them ; immediately afterwards eight vessels are wrecked, and several lives lost, either at the islands themselves, or on the way to or from them ; and now we have the death of Mr. Picken and the wreck of the Hadda. Mr. Picken died at the islands on board the Eetriever on March 28, of epilepsy, after twenty-four hours' illness. The Hadda, a barque belonging to Newcastle, N.S.W., was wrecked on the 30th of April on the Abrolhos, a group of islands about thirty miles from Champion Bay, as she was returning from the Lacepedes in ballast, her crew saving themselves in their boats. Captain Fisher, of Tasmania, after discovering the nonexistence of Barker's Islands, offered on January last to lease the Lacepede Islands. In February he received a reply to the effect that the Government was prepared to receive a tender from him. On this he came over from Tasmania, and made a tender in due form, when it would appear the Government found it was not in a position to accept it. This was not the purport of the reply made to Captain Fisher. The Government gave no reasons. It merely declined the oiler. But it thought the offer of sufficient importance to hold a special meeting of the Executive on the subject, and from all the circumstances it is inferred that it did not feel at liberty to lease the islands, pending the settlement of the dispute with the United States. That this Government feels there is a question as to its assumed rights over the Lacepede Islands, and that it cannot carry things with as high a hand as it at first thought, is further indicated by the despatch of the .Nymph to these miserable rocks. The Nymphe went straight to the islands and back, and her mission must have been special—probably for the purpose of determining the exact distance of tbo islands from the mainland.