The Watchman And Southron

GALAPAGOS: ISLANDS OF HIDDEN GOLD, STRANGE BIRDS AND GIANT TORTOISES

"The Galapagos Islands are being revisited by scientists because they form an incomparable natural history museum," says a bulletin from the Washington, D. C., headquarters of the National Geographic Society.

"Charles Darwin began their scientific exploration and he reported on the various species of giant tortoises, each species confined to a single islet, and pointed out that half the flowers and half the birds of the island are to be found nowhere else in the world.

"More than 2,000 volcanic cones besprinkle the archipelago, one estimate has it, and the islands' volcanic origin accounts for the peculiar interest they hold for science. Darwin deduced that the group has not been nearer the mainland, nor have the islands been closer together, than now.

How Peculiarities Developed

"Hence the species of flowers and birds which drifted to the islands have undergone a development in their isolated environment very different from that in their native habitats. Seldom has nature provided such a clear-cut opportunity to study the processes of evolution.

"The Galapagos hold a different sort of lure for the modern world. Most tales of hidden treasure warrant many grains of salt, but it seems certain that the pirates of South America hid their loot of gold and silver where they had their headquarters, in these islands. Two caches have been unearthed, silver ingots and pieces of eight. The finder of one built a hotel in Ecuador; the second drank himself to death.

Equatorial Air Chilly

"The islands lie just under the Equator but the air frequently is chilly on some of them. One, Albemarle, also called Isabela, is 500 feet high. The cold Antarctic currents which fan the coast of Peru strike seaward at Cape Blanco and surge across the Galapagos group. Up to 800 feet most of the islands are barren, above that level they are swathed in clouds whose moisture aids luxuriant vegetation.

"Wild goats, cattle, cats and dogs, as well as hidden treasure, bear evidence of the rendezvous of buccaneers. In 1832 Ecuador annexed the islands and since 1885 they have had a governor. They acquired a strategic importance with the opening of the Panama Canal, for they lie on the canal-to-Australia route.

"The largest island of the group, the aforementioned Albemarle, is larger than Long Island, New York; the entire group has an area considerably in excess of that of Delaware. The nearest of the islands to mainland is nearly 600 miles west of Ecuador.

Have Economic Value

"Treasure and science to one side as a famous humorist would say, the future of the islands looms large upon their agricultural merit." Ralph Stock, in his classic account of "The Dream Ship" expedition wrote:

"The soil is a rich, red loam, almost stoneless, and scarcely touched by the plow. There are 3,500 head of cattle at present on Cristobal Island, and it could support 50,000 with ease. There is no disease and no adverse climatic condition with which to contend, and at three years old a steer brings $100 (gold), live weight, at Guayaquil—when a steamer can be induced to call and take it there.

"There are a few hundred acres under cultivation when there might be thousands, and two hundred bone-lazy peons do the work of fifty ordinary farm hands.

"Looking down on this fertile valley, it is hard to realize that one is standing on the lip of a long-extinct crater, that in reality Cristobal is a series of these, dour and uninviting to a degree, viewed from outside, but veritable gardens within. And there are four other islands in the Galapagos group—some smaller, some larger, than Cristobal—uninhabited and exactly similar in character. Nominally, they belong to Ecuador. Here surely, is a new field for enterprise."