NAREATIYE OF THE SECOND AND THIRD EXPEDITIONS. 59 



joossible by detailing H.M.S. "Porpoise," Captain F. C. D. Sturdee, R.N., for this 

 work. To the Senate of the University of Sydney I owe the kind permission that 

 was given nie to go as leader of the 1897 Funafuti Expedition, and to my old friend 

 and colleague, Mr. E. F. Pittman, A.R.S.M., I am specially indebted for his kindness 

 in delivering gratuitously my geological lectures in my absence. To the Council of 

 the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, Sydney, and to the President, the 

 Hon. P. G. King, and the Hon. Treasurer, Mr. H. S. W. Crummer, I owe much for 

 assistance during the beginning of the 1897 Expedition, and the latter has been 

 throughout a most unselfish and devoted worker for us. 



To Mr. Thomas Whitelegge, of the Australian Museum, I am specially indebted 

 for determining Mr. Finckh's Corals, and to Messrs. C Hedley and R. Etheridge, 

 Junr., for much advice and friendly criticism, and to Mr. W. S. Dun, Palaeontologist 

 to the Geological Survey, for references to literature. Mr. J. H. Maiden, F.C.S., &c., 

 Director of the Botanic Gardens, Sydney, has most kindly worked out the botanical 

 collections from Funafuti. Our hearty thanks are due to the Hon. B. G. Corney, 

 M.D., and to the Government of Fiji, for much kind assistance and many concessions. 



For the success of the Diamond Drill Boring of 1897 and 1898 I should like once 

 more to state that we were indebted to the steady perseverance and forethought of 

 the Government Superintendent of Diamond Drills, my friend Mr. W. H. J. Slee, 

 F.G.S., who has worked throughout in the interests of the Expedition with hearty 

 good will and unselfish loyalty. Of all the men who went with the drill party 

 we undoubtedly owe most to Foreman G. Burns, whose inflexible determination and 

 resourceful energy probably saved the 1897 Expedition from failure at a critical 

 juncture. The excellent services rendered by Mr. Halligan and Mr. Finckh speak 

 for themselves, it would be hard indeed to over-estimate their value. The unstinted 

 work, too, of my old students, Mr. W. G. Woolnough and Mr. William Poole, 

 was such as will not readily be forgotten. The Deputy Commissioner for the 

 Western Pacific, Mr. R. Telfer Campbell, rendered us good service in seeing to 

 the safe storage at Funafuti of our gear and coal. The services rendered us by 

 Captain E. G. Rason, R.N., now Commissioner for the New Hebrides, when in 

 command of H.M.S. "Royalist," in supplying us in the hour of need with coal, food, 

 and money are deserving of grateful recognition. I am grateful also to Professor 

 BoNNEY and Dr. G. J. Hinde for much kind help, as well as to Mr. F. Chapman 

 and Miss Ethel Barton (Mrs. Gepp). I should like also to say how much the 1897 

 Expedition owed to my wife's presence."* 



The work of boring the Funafuti Atoll has proved more difficult, tedious and costly 

 than was at first anticipated. It may appear to some that the results attained are not 

 commensurate with the sacrifices made, and such a view seems not unreasonable at 

 first sight, but it must be remembered that in this, as in many other pieces of 



■* Mrs. David has written an interesting account of their life on the island, its scenery and the 

 inhabitants — ' Funafuti, or Three Months on a Coral Island' (J. Murray, 1899). — ^T. G. B. 



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