Journeys
The expeditions, reassembled
Every dated label is a diary entry. Read a collector’s labels in order and the voyage comes back: the islands in sequence, the days at each, the specimens from every stop. 5 journeys so far, 1971 to 1977, 745 specimens between them.
4 collectors and expeditions147 days in the field28,574 km between stops514 photographed specimens
5 journeys match
J.M. Powell
6 islands · Apr – Jul 1972
J.M. Powell across 6 islands, April – July 1972377 specimens · 34 stops · 109 days · 11,538 km
D.E. Yen
6 islands of the Solomon Islands · Feb – May 1971
D.E. Yen across 6 islands of the Solomon Islands, February – May 1971161 specimens · 31 stops · 107 days · 1,964 km
Noel Louis Hilmer Krauss
13 islands · Dec 1976 – Apr 1977
Noel Louis Hilmer Krauss across 13 islands, December 1976 – April 197788 specimens · 27 stops · 104 days · 15,072 km
D.E. Yen
3 islands of the Solomon Islands · Nov – Dec 1971
D.E. Yen in Anuta, Nendo (Santa Cruz) and Guadalcanal, November – December 197177 specimens · 8 stops · 37 days
T.P. Bayliss-Smith
3 islands of the Solomon Islands · Jan – May 1971
T.P. Bayliss-Smith in Ontong Java Atoll, Sikaiana and Onton Java Atoll, January – May 197142 specimens · 18 stops · 123 days
How a journey is found
Every specimen with a full date (year, month and day; a bare “1 January” is treated as a missing day) and a named collector is a diary entry. For each collector the days are read in order, each day given the place most of its labels name. The place where a collector spent more than forty percent of their days, and at least sixty of them, is home: days there are left out.
A gap of more than 21 days between collecting days ends one journey and begins the next. A journey must run five to four hundred days, hold at least forty specimens and touch at least two places. Within it, consecutive days inside the same or a neighbouring tenth-of-a-degree cell (about eleven kilometres) are one stop; the stop’s point is the mean of its labels’ coordinates, or the island’s centre when none carry any.
Companions are collectors whose own labels put them in the same cell on the same days. Staff can name a journey, write about it, feature it or hide it; those words survive every rebuild. Everything else is read off the specimens and rebuilt by harvest.mjs expeditions as the records improve.