Captain Jim Thurstall?s secret island of gold.

Hello All

Here is a story I first heard about many years ago from a old work mate of mine when he worked for a company PNG Drilling at Lihir Island Papa New Guinea.

Captain Jim Thurstall?s secret island of gold.

In the North island of New Zealand at the out break of World War 1 a little trading schooner came to port with an amazing story. That set the imaginations ablaze with greed. It spawned countless searches for a mythical island of gold.

The vessel the Cora owned in part by Captain Jim Thurstall sailed into port one day in with 26 tons of quartz studded with gold. He told the story about him not having much luck trading with the natives of New Guinea, Solomon Islands region where he lost his cargo of trade goods.

In desperation they decided they had enough supplies to go on a cruise of the pacific in a region less frequented by ships. In the course of their journey one morning they discovered a tiny Little Island where no island was recorded on the map. The Island was a barren crescent shaped island with a small ridge on the island.

Captain Thurstall and crew decided to explore this new found island where one was not supposed to be. On climbing to the top of the ridge they discovered a quartz reef studded with large chunks of gold. They worked like made men until they had filled they schooner full to the brim with the quartz from the island.

Jim Thurstall now in port now celebrating his good fortune with his crew gave the compass bearing of the island of gold to any one who wanted them. The North island of New Zealand was stricken by gold fever, only dampened by the beginning of world war one.

Was there any truth to this island trader?s story? Many set out to find Mystery Island only to return in failure. Some believe it was a volcanic island that for a short time rose to the surface of the Pacific Ocean and sunk again during plate movements along the Pacific Rim of fire.

By one fact is undeniable Jim Thurstall after crushing the quartz banked 300.000 pounds in the Bank of New Zealand and records of this can be still found to this day. Three hundred thousand dollars is quite a fortune by 1914 standards. Jim never went back to his island and died a wealthy man.

In researching this story I believe there is a possible link to another story in New Guinea. Before World War 1 New Guinea was protectorate of the German Empire. The outer Islands were also part of this protectorate. Jim Thurstall operated his trading business in this region.

On the island of Lihir there is a story that gold was discovered by a German settler before World War 1. Who was in the process of burying a dead horse and discovered gold. For a time the German called his little mine the Dead Horse Mine. He was very wary of letting any information of his find going back to Port Moresby before he was afraid of starting a gold rush.

Over time he worked the available gold reef and stock piled the gold quartz. Until he could arrange the gold to be processed some where else not to attract the attention of authorities in Port Moresby. Perhaps the events leading up to World War 1 filtered down to that distant part of the world and forced the Germans hand, where he made a deal with and island trader called Jim Thurstall to ship his gold to New Zealand for processing.

History does not record what happened to this intrepid German miner, How ever he was remembered by the local natives of the island in legend. Did Jim Thurstall murder the German and stole his gold? Or using the war as an excuse renege on a deal with the German and told the story of a mythical island to cover his crime?

Lihir Island gold mine is on a volcano was not rediscovered and reopened until the later part of the 20th century. Today there is a multi million dollar operation there with a large open cut with drilling Riggs drilling horizontal boreholes and pumping in sea water to cool the ground rock enough to mine it. There is a multimillion dollar processing plant there and small harbor there today.

Are the two stories connected? Perhaps we will never know for sure and perhaps it is nice to think some where out there where Mother Nature in all her power and glory thrusts up from her sea floor from time to time an Island of Gold in wide vastness of the Pacific Ocean.

Hardluck  




Hello again all.

Here is an article about disappearing islands I hope you find fascinating.

Island in the sub-Antarctic seas there is an island which has become an enigma since its discovery. Emerald Island was discovered in 1821 by Captain Nockells and named after his vessel the Emerald, since its discovery this Due south of Macquarie Island has resulted in a lot of controversy. Does it exist or doesn't it?Numerous searches for the Island have resulted in sightings of it; others that have gone to the same location have proclaimed only empty sea where it should have been.There are those that say Emerald is a haunted Island that moves from place to place, never remaining in one spot.Those who have occasionally seen Emerald Island give conflicting accounts of it, some claim it to be a Mountainous Island with steep and rugged cliff faces, others talk of green fields, and rolling hills, however, no one has ever reported making a landing on the Island; all reports are in most cases from a distance.

In 1890 however, a Port Charmers sea captain once told F.R. Chapman, Botanist, and Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, that he had once seen Emerald Island and tried to make a landing on it. He depicted it as a small island, very rugged and rocky, with no safe place to make an approach.In the 1840's Commodore Wilks, an American, commanding the vessel Vincenne and accompanied by the Porpose passed over the supposed position of Emerald Island, only to be met with open ocean, however the expedition was regarded as inconclusive as conditions were foggy at the time.In 1877 another expedition was initiated to try and find the elusive Island, Captain Soule aboard the Friendship tried exactly the same tactic as Commodore Wilks, once more no island was observed. Emerald Island was deleted from new editions of maritime charts for the region.Twenty-eight years later Captain Scott aboard the Discovery was fascinated by the riddle of Emerald Island and decided to try to find it. As they neared the position of Emerald things appeared hopeful. Soundings taken in the locality displayed a steady rise in the seabed indicating the prospect of a nearby landmass. The weather once more was uncooperative and the investigation had to be abandoned.

Shackleton, the famous explorer, was charged with finding the island, in 1909 his expedition approached Emeralds position, weather conditions this time were very suitable, with good visibility and calm seas. Despite the ideal conditions Shackleton like the others failed to find any evidence of the island. The following year Amundsen's expedition was returning from their polar explorations, they discovered their course would eventually take then right over Emeralds position, for the sake of safety their course was changed just in case, despite passing what should have been just westward of the Island nothing was seen except open sea where the island should have been.1894 saw a Norwegian Polar expedition set course for Emeralds position, on reaching the coordinates land was indeed sighted. An island judged to be about 50 miles long was viewed extending from east to west before them, uninviting and dull grey in colour, the Captain ordered a course change toward it. It looked as if Emerald had once more materialized after being lost for so long. As they approached, the Island however disclosed itself to be nothing more than a massive floating iceberg.

Emerald once again stayed hidden from those trying to find it.Further searches for the island appeared futile.April 1949 brought fresh news of the island as H.M.N.Z.S Pukaki on course for Campbell Island neared the locality of Emerald Island, a dark craggy landmass was witnessed from the vessel, and Pukaki modified its course to conduct an investigation, on reaching the landmass it revealed itself to be nothing more than a dense cloudbank.Emerald had once again deceived another sea captain.Did Emerald ever exist in the first place? Perhaps as there are processes that can cause whole islands to disappear.One of these processes is seismic activity, the zone south of Macquarie Island, even the Island itself, is very tectonically active and large earthquakes have occurred in the past and still continue to do so today.The 1960 Chilean earthquake, magnitude 9.5 caused the submergence of six islands off the coast of Chile.Tectonic activity cannot be disregarded.Another great destroyer of islands is volcanic activity. The eruption of Karakatoa in 1883 caused a nearby island to completely submerge and new ones to be formed.Emerald is not the only island to exhibit a disappearing- reappearing history in the Southern Seas, the Nimrod Islands, east of the Antipodes, Company's Islands, south of Tasmania, Dougherty Island also known as Keates Island, midway between New Zealand and Cape Horn, have all exhibited exactly the same characteristics as Emerald. Searches have been conducted for these Islands also, and like Emerald, they seem to vanish from their stated positions.

Are these Islands merely misidentified fog banks or transient icebergs?In poor weather conditions perhaps they make up a proportion of the accounts of these mysterious vanishing islands, but we are then left with those who have been close enough to view details of the islands. With modern topographical satellite mapping finding these islands should be no problem at all.However, if they do not show on satellite surveys it does not mean that they never did exist.If they did indeed exist what became of them?

Hardluck 

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