Fourth Archbold Expedition to New Guinea 1953 - Brass

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Fourth Archbold Expedition to New Guinea 1953 – Brass

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Results of the Archbold Expeditions No 75. Summary of the Fourth Archbold Expedition to New Guinea (1953)

The Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, New York. Published 1956. Quarto, soft cover with standard blue wrapper, 152 pages illustrated from photographs with an annotated sketch map of the locations explored. Distinguished anthropologist Brain J Egloff’s copy. Wrappers a little aged, internally very good.

Richard Archbold (1907-1976), American zoologist, was from a wealthy background. He attended Columbia University but never finished his formal training. Before WWII he funded three substantial expeditions to New Guinea. One of the members of his team was the Toowoomba born Leonard Brass (1900-1971) a brilliant botanist. After the War the expeditions resumed with three further expeditions completed in New Guinea under the leadership of Brass. This is the “Summary” of the Fourth Expedition - 1953. Before the War Brass had moved to Canada and then the USA where he became a citizen, working closely with Archbold. He was a curator of the Archbald Collection housed and the American Museum of Natural History.

Brian Egloff has had an inspiring career, assisting the National Museum of PNG, Port Arthur in Tasmania and the preservation and restoration of the Tam Ting Caves in Laos. He has published several interesting books … our choice being “The Bones of the Ancestors – The Ambum Stone” which centres on a 3,000-year-old New Guinea artefact that made its way to Australia.

In this the Fourth Expedition, Brass and his team are in the far eastern parts of Papua around the Cape Vogel Peninsula. Between Collingwood Bay and the central range at Mt Dayman and out to Goodenough Island in the D’Entrecasteaux Group and parts of Ferguson Island. Brass’s reports are written in a very readable style and whilst containing the scientific information expected (they collected close to 90,000 specimens) his general narrative of the trekking and observations along the way are very enjoyable.

Fundamental New Guinea record – Fourth Archbold

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