GILBERT ISLANDS.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 August 1916, Page 10

GILBERT ISLANDS.

"MOST VALUABLE IN THE WORLD." A passenger by the steamer Manuka from Sydney to Wellington on Monday was Professor Maemillan Brown, VieeGhancellor of the University of New Zealand. Professor Brown has spent three months at the Gilbert and EHice Islands on an investigation to discover the relationship of the Gilbert Islands to Polynesia in the east, Micronesia in the north-west, and Melanesia to the southeast. , , ;[ A most interesting feature in connection with' the islands," said the professor, "is that the Ocean and Nauru islands, formerly ruled by Germany, are the two most valuable spots on the face of the earth. On them are to be found phosphorus worth hundreds of millions —as much value as the whole of the nitrate fields of Chile. As these coral islands have risen from the sea, the birds have deposited rich layers of guano, which have permeated the limestone. There are now deposits of phosphate rock to a depth of 30 and 40 feet. I have seen these being worked. Tln?y ■provide the most valuable manure to be found in the world. A steamer comes along from Japan every wcel.' it so to take a cargo of the material to be made into superphosphates. Our freezing companies get shipments of these superphosphates from Japan monthly to mix with their blood manures. Ocean Island is the most westerly of the Gilbert ■>, and is the seat of Government. "One of the extraordinary things," .remarks IProfessor Brown in conclusion, "is that though the DeputyCommissioner of the Gilberts has been recommending that they should "pe transformed from a Protectorate into a colony for many years, it iwas only (even or eight months ago that the ch.rngq was made."