Fifth Archbold Expedition to New Guinea 1956-1957 - Brass

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Fifth Archbold Expedition to New Guinea 1956-1957 – Brass

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Results of the Archbold Expeditions No 79. Summary of the Fifth Archbold Expedition to New Guinea (1956-1957)

The Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, New York. Published 1959. Quarto, soft cover with standard blue wrapper, 69 pages plus illustrations from photographs at the end with an annotated map showing the locations explored. Very good copy.

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.

In this the Fifth Expedition, Brass and his team are in the island groups to the east … Normanby, Fergusson, Misima, Sudest and Rossel (in the Louisade Archipelago), Woodlark Island and Kiriwina in the Trobriands. On the mainland the conducted specimen collections at Moruna near Samarai and near Milne and Modewa Bay.

Brass’s reports are written in a very readable style and whilst containing the scientific information expected (they collected close to 80,000 specimens) his general narrative of the trekking and observations along the way are very enjoyable. At Misima references are made to the glimpse of early gold … if only they had known …

Fundamental New Guinea record – Fifth Archbold – out in the Islands.

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