SUDDEN FORTUNE

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1082, 20 September 1930, Page 26

SUDDEN FORTUNE

PEARLING HOLDS ROMANCE AND TRAGEDY FAMOUS SOUTHERN CROSS The pearling industry of Broome, iu Western Australia, teems with romance and tragedy. Here the famous Southern Cross pearl was found. This extraordinary pearl, or cluster of pearls, is probably the most remarkable that Nature has ever produced. It contains a group of nine pearls, naturally grown together in so regular a manner as to form an almost perfect Latin cross. Seven pearls compose the shaft, which measures one inch and a-half in length, and the two arms of the cross are formed of one pearl oil each side, almost opposite to the second pearl, reckoning from the top downward (writes Frank Reid, in tho Melbourne “Argus"). The component pearls of the cross are of fine quality, and they would be of good shape were it. not that bynatural compression during growth they have become slightly flattened on their opposite sides, while some of them, though round in front, are distorted into deep shapes at the hack. This pearl was discovered by a man named Clarke, who, with his son, was pearling in the lugger Ethel. The craft was owned by a man named Kelly. When the opened shell disclosed the remarkable pearl cross all the crew were filled with amazement and awe. Kelly, who regarded it as a heaven-wrought miracle, with a certain amount of superstitious dread.

buried the pearls, tor how long is not known. The cross was discovered in 1574, and in JS7tj it was exhibited at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, where it attracted much attention, set in a simple gold mount, which left both the back and front of the pearl perfectly free. At first sight it 1 might have been suppQsed that the pearls had been artificially joined together, but a number of scientists and experts were allowed to examine the cross closely with powerful magnifying glasses and a brilliant light. Broome waters have given up many other remarkable pearls. There is I the story of one found in 1916 in shallow depths by a black diver which I brought the remarkable sum of i £B,OOO. Then there was the Eacott : pearl. There has been some dispute over the discoverer of this gem. but the man who owned the lugger, and whose property it became, was a pearler named Eacott, and the gem was named after him. Eacott sold : it for £IO,OOO. and promptly invested the proceeds in a station. ] Some years ago, wheu l was in--1 terested in the North Australian pearling industry, I was intimately acquainted with Mr. Mark Rubin, who, after his death in 1919, left in the United Kingdom an estate of the value 1 of £53,946. Rubin was probably the 1 most eccentric pearler in the history of Australia. At Broome many ' stories are still told of the way in r i which he carelessly carried pearls of ’ | great value, and displayed them wher- ' ! ever he went. It is remarkable that ’ : he was not killed on several occa- " i slons, for there were many desperate 1 characters in Broome who greedily * gazed upon the costly gems he so reck- * i lessly exhibited. From the first ' week he interested himself in the 1 I pearling industry he had extraordinary ' j luck. If memory serves rightly, it 1 : was on his third trip out that one of his divers brought to the surface v a pearl which was afterward sold in : London for £B,OOO. Two weeks later 5 ' the same diver found another gem. ! which was valued at £IO.OOO. 2 Rubin made a huge fortune in northern pearling waters, but he spent lit lavishly. When I was at Broome in 1905 he gave a banquet on board 1 the s.s. Paroo. As soon as the guests , were seated each was presented with a bunch of rare orchids, which had 2 been brought to Broome encased in s i ice. On another occasion he gave a banquet in Melbourne at which each guest had a plate placed before him fin the centre of which lay a pearl of no small value. In 1907 a Jewish buyer named Leib--1 gild was lured out at Broome one - night by three Malays with a promise I of a pearl for sale. He carried £3OO in his clothes to make the purchase. II He was stabbed, robbed, and thrown s into the creek. The Malays were captured and hanged in Freman'le. The ' ; decoy was not a pearl, but merely a , i glass marble.