... Is it possible the channel was there long before 1963 and no one was interested in the least?
It was not there when the
surveys were done in the 1930s.That someone in recent decades opined that possibility (blasted in 1963) and that somehow became "fact"?
That the channel has been blasted out
is a demonstrable fact. The exact date and motivation for the blasting is what is uncertain. TIGHAR has never said that it knows with certainty the agents, date, and motivation of the excavation.
If it was always there, even before J. T. Arundel, that would be another mystery.
Arundel
began work in the Phoenix group in 1881.
The channel did not exist then or in the 1930s.
Speaking of which, according to Wikipedia, that company was never profitable in general, so to picture Hull Island as a bonanza for the investors is probably a misconception.
I'm not conscious of the profitability of Arundel's operations being part of the
Niku Hypothesis. Reading between the lines, the fact that the coconut plantations on Niku were abandoned by the 1930s suggests that it was not a profitable operation.
So the reason why they left Niku alone may not be as clear cut as the general assumption about dryness is, I think.
We that the colony
was abandoned in 1963 because of a long drought:
During the same period, however, a lengthy and destructive drought caused the belief to grow among the Phoenix colonists that the colony was a failure. Knudson describes the course of events from the perspective of the Manra colonists:
"It appears that this lengthy (drought) crisis prompted the unimane of Sydney Island to request the government to move them elsewhere. The request was not a unanimous one. There was considerable discussion of the matter, with some of the elders agreeing and some disagreeing. The young men appear not to have been in favor of moving. Those I talked to in the Solomons said they enjoyed the dry climate and felt that there was always sufficient food.
As the drought continued the elders gradually came to agree among themselves that the island was not permanently habitable. Finally in the early 1950s they sent a deputation to Tarawa. Convinced that Sydney Island had been the hardest hit by the droughts, and that there was little chance that conditions there could be much improved, the officers of the central administration determined to move the islanders elsewhere" (Knudson).
By the mid-1950s, relocation of the Manra colonists to the Solomons had begun, and by the early 1960s Orona and Nikumaroro were abandoned as well. The name Nikumaroro survives today as that of a village on Waghena Island in the Solomons, inhabited by ex-colonists and their descendants.
We know that the geography of the island does not provide long-lasting fresh water wells.
From the old Forum:
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 09:19:57 EDT
From: Ted Whitmore
Subject: Ground water on land adjacent to salt water
Ground water (fresh water you can dig for) on lands near salt water, especially islands surrounded by salt water, as Niku, is dependent upon rain water falling on the land. The water soaking into the soil will hold a head pressure purely by the weight of the water contained in the soil and will hold back salt water intrusion below. This water can be obtained by wells dug or driven into the soil deep enough to get to the water but too deep you may be back into salt water.
Florida is a good example of this phenomenon; rain falling on the sand ridge that basically forms the backbone of the peninsula of the state, pushes outward and keeps the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico from intruding into the underground aquifers or water system. In the past 50 years or so the increased demand for water due to our mushrooming population, especially in the coastal areas, has depleted the available fresh water, and the pressure thereof, in the coastal areas, forcing well drilling further and further inland to obtain non-saline water. This is a very serious problem the state is facing.
The higher an island is above sea level and the better the water holding capacity of the soil, the better the chances for a good fresh water well.
Niku doesn't have any of these good qualities. The elevation above sea level at the highest point is probably less than 6 meters (my guesstimate) giving little chance for much head pressure from rainwater. The soil is about as porous as you can find, mostly broken-up coral, overlaying a coral reef substructure that undoubtedly has many salt water channels in it. Thus the report that the best water found by the natives and/or Europeans was saline almost to the point of being undrinkable.
All of the vegetation on Niku, as well as other areas of the world immediately adjacent to salt water, must have salt water/salt spray tolerance to grow there. Coconuts will grow very well so close to salt water they can't possibly have their roots in much of anything but saltwater. Scaveola (Scaveola frutescens), according to Bob Brown's Forum Email of 9/7, "-- is used widely as an ornamental in the south Florida area and paricularly along the beaches where salt resistance is important."
The thought that the Niku castaway might have had trouble finding enough fresh water does not seem like a huge stretch of the imagination.