UNIQUE GIFT

Taupo Times, Volume I, Issue 23, 18 June 1952, Page 5

UNIQUE GIFT

BLACK PEEBLES FOR A FOUNTAIN The Mediterranean Island of (Rhodes, scene of the United Nationh' successful Palestine armistice negotations in 1949, is making another outj standing contribution to the world organization — this -time an aesthetic one. | From the Island's ancient beaches are being gleaned the world's only known black pebbles. They will be | used to decorate the floor of the 149I foot-wide fountain at U.N. head- | quarters in New York. This foun1 tain is the gift of American school children, who contributed more than five million pennies — $50,000. Early last year, U.N. architects decided that the most attractive flooring of the fountain would be an alternating pattern of black and white pebbles. 'Combing the world's beaches produced white, blue, red, and even pink pebbles — but black ones seemed nonexistant. Then Rhodes, site of one of the Seven Wonders of the An cient World, produced another wonder. An American woman working for a former U.N. architect remembered having seen black pebbles during a visit to Rhodes. Inquiries were made of Governor-General I. Georgakis of the Dodecancese Islands, of which Rhodes is a part. He sent a sample of the rare stone, set with white pebbles, in a frame of glass. The Governor-General has informed the United Nations that Rhodes is "happy and proud" to contribute the pebbles. "I have already given instructions to this effect and the collection has started," he says. The only cost to the United Nations will he the transportatiom, and Rhodes will, if necessary, send a workman who specialises in this particular type of mosaic pavement.