foot. It is not strange, therefore, that romances, adventures, 

 explorers, scientists, one and all have dreamed fond dreams of 

 some day plundering for one reason or another, in some way or 

 other, this great storehouse of loiowledge, adventure, and discovery. 



In moments of reckless fancy many such dreams of conquest 

 have been made over into tentative plans for accomplishing what is 

 without doubt the world's greatest task of exploration. Unfortu- 

 nately many of the plans thus proposed, though worthy in them- 

 selves, have been doomed from the first to languish for want of 

 financial support, or worse still have perished from lack of the 

 ordinary encouragement which one enthusiast is usually willing to 

 accord to another. 



In view of the many disappointments of the past it is gratifying 

 and significant to find that the effort now being made to form a 

 thoroughly modern co-operative scientific institution with the 

 endowment and facilities necessary to carry on rapidly an exhaus- 

 tive survey of the whole region is everywhere being received with 

 the most cordial approval and support. At last one of the many 

 plans of exploration that has been offered is to be brought to 

 fruition. Hawaii, situated in the midst of the region to be studied 

 is to be the center of this great undertaking. 



The propriety of Honolulu serving as a focal point and leading 

 in the work, as well as the fact that at last a worthy survey of the 

 Pacific is to be inaugurated has been hailed by men in all countries, 

 both in and out of science, with the utmost enthusiasm. For 

 there are many who believe that the results growing out of a care- 

 fully planned and faithfully executed exploration of the whole 

 realm will add more to the sum of human knowledge than any 

 single effort of a like kind that can be attempted. 



It seems unnecessary to discuss the many urgent reasons which 

 make the exploration of this region almost imperative. Everyone 

 knows that the Polynesian race is not only passing away, but 

 that it is taking with it into the great beyond all the facts which 

 would elucidate the manifold problems involved in the origin and 

 subsequent distribution of the various branches of the race in the 

 Pacific. We know that the civilization of the Polynesian people 

 was not only very old at the time of their discovery by the white 



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