66 



"1 T * • • 



are equally consistent with the undoubted fact that poured down its heat again. Soon the wisps of cloud 

 those heights were at one time forest land, and have became more permanent, and finally a little cap of 

 been denuded and burned to grass by the native. So 

 Sir William, no doubt, regarded the Wharton Range 

 and Mount Victoria " cypresses " as naturally wide-sown 



cloud, covering the peak some 50-100 feet down stuck 

 fast, and from it, mushroomed upwards, a large mass 

 of white cloud into the clear blue sky. I had left 



trees, just as travellers in the vast plains of grass of the peak then, and was in full warm sunshine 1,000 

 the Markham Valley regard the few scattered trees they feet below. By sundown this cloud had quite dis- 

 appeared, and in the frosty air the peak looked sharp 

 and clear from my camp below it. 



There was one curious point about the atmospheric 

 conditions which is worth recording. The general 

 night conditions appeared excellent for radio work, yet 

 I failed to read such strong signals as Cavite N.P.M. 



It was most unfortunate, for I relied on their mid- 

 night time signal for my longitude observation. The 



iV^^^ZJ^ 11 ^ 1 ^ atmospheric conditions would, I think, be logged by 

 the mossy iorest. n r , u , , . , , „ ' TjL > fob j 



'' an operator as statics bad. It was not a case of 



distant lightning causing the usual " atmospherics," 

 though their growl ings were there all the night, but 

 my aerial appeared to be continuously clurged, and 

 while by touching the grid, I could get a dash or a 

 couple of dots, the signals were at once wiped out 

 until I again touched the grid. I tried both during 



encounter as the natural and original vegetation of 

 the area. In both cases, an examination of the edges 

 of the grass land or a careful inspection of the clumps 

 of forest that are to be found isolated in a sea of grass, 

 would show that the conditions are not natural, and 

 the tree growth is merely nature's survival of man's 

 work.- On the edge of the grass area on the tops of 

 the high mountains stand the coniferous forests, and 

 yearly the bald cap is extended downwards until it 

 meets the true cloud belt region 



The annual burn does not take place only from the 

 top, but fires are lit in the interior of the forest also, 

 and so islands of grass are formed, which increase every 

 year. It is in these little islands that the natives make 

 their camping grounds, for the surrounding forest 

 affords some shelter from the keen winds. All around 

 is .a fringe of dead timber, reminding one forcibly of 

 k settlement out-back in Australia. The illusion is 



the skeleton forest. 



<^- 



the night and day, and while up to date, except in a 

 heightened by the tall tree ferns, which IronsT^"!^ str01 !^ and v . rl T local thunderstorm, I had never failed 



for a year or two and make a great show of ereen in *° pick up tlme > I was lllulble ta g et *ny signals until 



I got down to 10,000 feet. It is probable that 



travellers at high altitudes elsewhere have suffered 

 from the same difficulty, and have found a means of 

 overcoming it, but I have failed to find any record 

 of such an experience, nor have technical men been 

 able to explain it. I advance as a theory to account 

 for the phenomenon that such high peaks as Sarawaket 



Pointo of dis- 



I am forced to the conclusion from what I have 

 actually seen in the tropics of Xew Guinea and in West 

 Africa, that all grass lands occurring in the tropics 

 where the rainfall and soil conditions are sufficient 

 to support dense forest, are artifically caused by man- 

 kind in his shifting cultivation or in his hunting. 

 At sea-level cultivation begins and hunting fires finish 

 the conversion, while at 12,000 feet hunting fires alone 

 are sufficient to turn a forest into grass laud. What 

 vegetation exists at still higher elevations, such as in 



act as large lightning conductors, 

 charge, as it were, of these mighty mountain ranges. 

 1 experienced no thunder at my highest camp, but 

 below in the cloud belt from this high elevation I 

 watched many thunderstorms. After one of them 





These 



■Tto , ; I:' t T fi "•? n lHgh m0mitain t0 P s a PP* ar t0 be ™»>1«* to the same 



n< othnk tint the coniferous forest persists until seasonal climate as the coast. The infl^P i* .till 



the climate conditions render tree growth impossible. 



Climatically, the high mountain 

 nifieent. 



being recorded from 11 p.m. to dawn, but the dav 



region is mag- 



Tile nights are cold, temperature of 33 deg. 



seasonal climate as the coast. ' The influence is still 

 the south-east and the north-west monsoons, and the 

 dry season at the peak corresponds with the dry season 

 on the coast. So with Sarawaket, the highest and 

 yet the most south-easterly peak of the Finisterre 



until about 4 p.m. are delightfully clear during the group, the dry season corresponds with Finsch-hafen 



dry season. For a few hours in the frosty dawn one 



and occurs during the north-west monsoon, that trade 



looks down on the world with the sea studded with little wind leaving its watery vapour at the north-west end 

 islands washing a very clear shore, and all around of the Finisterre, and 



stand peak upon 



peak of great mountains. 



The 



reaching the south-east end 



valleys deep down are clothed in fog, but otherwise the 

 Whole sweep of mountain and foothills is plain to see 

 until the great heat of the sun starts the upward rush 

 of watery vapour, and all the land is blotted out. At 



comparatively dry. When I was on the top the natives 

 had just begun to burn, and they expected to hunt from 

 then on to February or March; camping at 11,000 

 feet for, sometimes, a week or more, which shows that 

 these mountain natives whose villages are at about 



13,450 feet on the peak of Sarawaket at 10 a.m. there 5 > 000 f eet, are as hardy as the Zulus. 



was nothing to be seen below one but cloud, while all 

 around peaks of a few thousand feet lower altitude 

 stood out of a sea of rolling clouds in the most extra- 

 ordinary manner. The whole world seemed changed, 

 and there was I perched on an island with nothing but 

 cloud between me and the next island peak. The 

 top crests of the Bismarck*, miles away to the north- 

 west glinted golden, doubtless a rock exposure 

 reflecting the sun. All the valley of the Markham 

 and the Ramu and all the sea and midmountain coun- 

 try beneath me had vanished in cloud. It is a very 

 lonely sensation to be thus cut off from the world on 



Mangrove Forests. 



In the Papuan section, p. 47, I have described the 

 characteristic mangrove forests. In the Mandated 

 Territory they are similar in composition, but nowhere 

 are there such vast areas of these forests of the sea as 

 in the Delta division of Papua. 



The mighty Sepik and the Ramu, though probably 

 discharging more water and silt than that great group 

 of rivers that flow into the Papuan Gulf, have little 

 or no tidal estuaries, and so the mangrove forests are 



o.ey sensation o De thus cut off from the world on narrow strips extending but a few miles inland and 

 the topmost point of land, and nothing but clear blue linking the Ramu to the Senik ' 



sky above one and a sea of cloud around. 



Shortly 



after 11 o'clock thick wisps of cloud collected by the 

 south-east trades on the peak, and it grew very cold until 

 they blew away, and the sun now near the zenith 



linking the Ramu to the Sepik. 



Elsewhere there are little patches of mangrove 

 behind an island or under the lee of a headland or 

 along a low-lying, swampy shore, but no extensive 

 area occurs. When it occurs on the islands of is T ew 





