A SHELL STORY.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 801, 13 April 1871, Page 3

A SHELL STORY.

The followiug strange tale of the sea is vouched for by the Melbourne correspondent of the " Bendigo Independent: A report is current in town that the schooner Prima Donna, which arrived in port on Saturday, ostensibly from Noumea, New Caledonia, has really brought to market a most valuable cargo of pearl shell from some unknown island in the Pacific. It is said that the captain of the craft was lately wrecked on one of the islands of the Pacific Ocean, but succeeded in making his escape to New Caledonia, and eventually arrived in Sydney. While walking the quay there he noticed the arrival of a small craft from the west coast of Australia with pearl shell, which afterwards sold for upwards of £14,000. The shipwrecked captain, on examining this valuable cargo of shells, immediately recognised them as the same species that he had observed in immense quantities on the uninhabited island on which he was wrecked. He kept his counsel, c?me to Melbourne, where he had friends and disclosed to them what a prospect there was for a fortune to be made. They believed his tale, and at an expenditure of of a few hundred pounds, fitted out the Prima Donna for the venture. She has been away between three and four months, found the island, filled up with shells, and arrived on Saturday last with a cargo worth many thousand pounds. Such is the story going about. At all events, the shipping reports record the arrival of the Prima Donna, schooner, with ninety tons of pearl shell, which lam told is worth nearly £2OO per ton.