V. 



Exploration in New Guinea.' 



WHAT may be called the golden age of exploration in New Guinea 

 dates from about the year 1870. Previous to that time various 

 navigators had laid down for us different portions of coast line, 

 beyond which almost nothing was known. During the last two decades 

 scarcely a year has passed without some expedition of greater or less 

 importance visiting its shores. Since the establishment of the 

 Protectorate in 1884, our knowledge has grown with marked rapidity. 

 To the distinguished mariners Kolff, Blackwood, Owen Stanley, and 

 Schleinitz, and to those talented surveyors Moresby, Field and Pullen, 

 we are indebted for the accurate delineation of its coast-lines, and of 

 the depth and trend of its under- water margins. To such naturalists 

 as Macgillivray, Teijsman, Meyer, Wallace, D'Albertis, Beccari, 

 Miklucho Maclay, and Macgregor, we chiefly owe the materials we 

 now possess for the biological history of the country. Prominent 

 among the large contributors to the geographical features of the 

 interior of New Guinea are Van der Crab, Lawes, Chalmers, Maclay, 

 D'Albertis, Pfeil, Cuthbertson and others, of whom the present 

 Administrator, more favoured than his predecessors, in wielding the 

 authority and the resources of the Possession, as well as profiting by 

 the experience of preceding explorers, is pre-eminent. 



Of the three territories into which the great island is divided, the 

 British possession, occupying its narrowest part, and being easy of 

 access from both shores, has been far best explored. Of the interior 

 of the Dutch portion we know very little indeed, and of late years 

 almost no exploratory work has been attempted, nor any colonisation, 

 though it will probably yet be found that the Netherlanders possess 

 in the slopes of the Charles Louis Mountains, which are said to 

 ascend by gentler gradients than those of the Owen Stanley range, 

 the most valuable and salubrious tract of the whole island. Of the 

 large region on the south-eastern coast, between the meridians of 

 135° and 141° of east longitude, we are in almost entire ignorance. 

 It is probable that much of the country for a long distance inland 

 south of the 5th parallel of south latitude will be found quite low and 

 similar to the adjacent region of the Fly River, which lies across the 



" British New Guinea" By J. P.Thomson, F.K.S.G.S. Pp. xviii., 336, with 

 map and numerous illustrations. London : George Philip & Son, 1892. Price 21s. 



